After The Darkness Falls
by Peta2
Summary: When the farm falls, Andrea saves Carol from certain death and together they run...run from the only comfort and family they've known since the outbreak to run into a future neither of them could expect. The only certainty they have is that they have each other and that the world around them is terrifying and yet, strangely the same. Can Merle and Woodbury make a difference?
1. Chapter 1

After The Darkness Falls

Prologue

"_Run."_

Air tore violently from her lungs, gasping and painful. She wonders how she can keep her feet going, snapping through underbrush, sticks stabbing at her shins, rotting leaves making her slide across the forest floor. She stumbles through it, frozen tears of terror biting into her cheeks with the cold of the night, dead hands clawing at the air behind her trying to reach her as she slows, then renews her pace with abrupt spurts of fear-fuelled adrenaline before slowing again. Her feet are becoming slack, numb, stumbling more and more, sending her sprawling to her knees, and they crack hard against uneven ground and sharp rocks and discarded branches. Her fingernails fill painfully with dank earth as she struggles to find purchase, to find a way to lever herself back to a stand. Andrea is there like a whip, snatching sloppily at her arms and dragging her back to her feet, pushing her forward, keeping her in front of the walkers that pursue them endlessly.

"Run."

Each bullet Andrea aims has deadly precision, catapulting into a dead and rotting brain and after each success, they are off and running again. Running for their lives. Unable to stop or they'd both be dead. Unable to catch their breath, stop pounding hearts and adrenaline rushes. Carol clutches at the large branch she took when first surrounded at the farm. It has managed to protect her, and she's even slammed the end of it into a few skulls, helping Andrea to pick off each one that comes for them, lunges for them, is desperate to consume them.

"_Run."_

Hours pass, steps slow, time stands still and yet it doesn't end. She doesn't think she can run and breathe anymore—it's one or the other. She has to choose and yet if she doesn't run, there is no choice because breath will be ripped from her the second walkers tear out her throat. Andrea has run out of bullets and her own arms are beyond aching. She doesn't think there's a word for how exhausted she is, how much agony her body is in. How much every muscle revolts against its continued use. Andrea is down to smashing heads in with the butt of her gun, then her pocketknife, while Carol still tries to raise the branch higher than her waist, slug them around the hips then raise it just high enough to slam into their heads.

"Keep running."

"I can't," she sobs, tripping once again into a blanket of leaves, feeling her face hit something sharp. Her blood just makes them ravenous.

"You can. You have to."

She's never seen Andrea so afraid. Not even after the herd on the Highway. She doesn't know how—never knew she had such force of will or instinct to survive—she drags her body up off the ground, screaming and jerking forward when one of them grabs at her boot and she kicks out wildly, sending it to the ground behind her. Andrea ploughs her knife into its temple then spins back to her, helping her to her feet, supporting her as they start running again.

"_Run, run, run, run."_

She's chanting it now in the hopes it will do something to her psyche, spark in her a determination to live. They've whittled the crowd down, there's only a few more. Just a few more. The numbers blur before her, sweat trickling into her eyes and making them sting. Andrea's squeezing her hand, pulling away abruptly to take one out as another comes too close and Carol swings the branch like a bat, a little lower this time, enough to knock against its legs. The trajectory is slow, weak and the walker doesn't hit the ground like the others before it. It is still stumbling forward and she's jerking back, fear clawing at her throat, distress driving needles of pain beneath her skin, fear slamming her heart against her chest and into her throat. It throbs there, and acid stings and makes her want to vomit, but the walker is there, in her face, it's disgusting teeth and rotting lips snapping against the branch that is holding it just above her face.

"Run. Run. Run."

She's saying it by rote now, wishing she could just shut it out of her mind because there is no running while she's flat on her back, the weight of this dead, destroyed thing pushing her further into the leaves. Into the earth. If anything she should be chanting for help, because this is the moment, right here, the one Jenner had been warning them about. This is _her _extinction event and there's nothing she can do as her elbows pop from the pressure, her forearms ache and her whole body is shaking from the terror, the finality, the uselessness of protecting herself, the fate of death in this world that is so full it reeks of it.

Its knees dig into her thighs, bony fingers still reaching for her, getting closer and closer as her hands, braced against the branch, are slowly pushed further into her body. Any minute now she knows those fingers are going to stab into her belly and rip out her insides like the other one did to Dale and still she's crying, run, run, run like she has any choice. Its drooling mouth presses closer and, as she's sobbing into the foul, decaying truth of it, she hears the singing in the air of a downswing and suddenly the head is gone, falling with a dull thud beside her arm and the rest of it collapses against her body, black blood splashing across her face and chest. The screams erupt from her like someone has thrust their fist into her throat and brutally ripped them out.

"Carol." Andrea, voice broken, expression shocked, slaps a hand across her mouth to try and muffle the alarming shrieks Carol can't seem to control and both of them look up, up at the hooded apparition that has just sliced the last of their immediate threat apart. Behind, two chained walkers, armless, mouths mutilated, sway as if they don't quite know what to do about the scent of life so close and yet no ability to seize the chance.

Her heart speeds up and squeezes brutally, the sudden drop of adrenaline freezing her body and as Carol looks wildly around herself, feels the cold, revolting blood that covers her, breathes in the repulsive stench, the rush of her own icy blood through her veins is overwhelming and just like that, her body decides she's had enough, quits on her and she passes out like a light.


	2. Chapter 2

Part One

He feels like he's had a headache since the day he went to Atlanta with that quarry group. It started when he'd first had to listen to that whiny blonde bitch panic all the way into the city, and at the times when she'd finally taken a breath, the gringo bastard was shooting orders left and right. He'd never been good at following orders—was better at giving them than putting up with assholes that thought they could tell him what to do.

Merle had never intended on playing nice with those people. He'd had one plan and one plan only in going on that trip. He wanted to breathe away from them all and those kidsat the camp, and he'd wanted to find some stuff to round out his stash. That plan had gone all to fuck the second Officer Friendly had crashed into their little party, and brought the butt of Merle's own rifle down on the back of his head. Headache. Exposure, sunstroke, thirst, sawing through flesh, tendons, bone, more headache. And now Woodbury seemed to be the biggest headache of all.

Some days, being an upstanding, solid citizen of Woodbury almost pushes him into considering splitting his own head wide open. It horrifies him the things a man has to be willing to do to save his own neck in this town. Merle has become quite practised at blocking it all out, finding other pleasures in the place to distract him from the shitty life choice that has been forced upon him. Most of the day his strategy works like a charm, but at night…at night he always seems to go to his place alone, unless he's scheduled to be on watch. Some days he makes sure he's on watch, just for the sheer relief to not be left alone with his own thoughts. With his own demons. Demons are no fucking good to him when he has nothing to blot out their roar. The Governor runs a clean ship—and that means no fun for Merle. Nothing to take the edge off, nothing to give him a little of the sweet life he's missed ever since he made the stupid decision to separate from his brother. It's nights like these, when his head is thumping and his body is wired ready to pounce and brutally tear down the first sonovabitch that dares to cross him, that he _craves _his lost stash with a desperation that makes him quiver.

The throbbing of his brain swelling too big for his skull at least serves the purpose of blinding him to the memories that keep building upon themselves as he stays within the walls of the town. Not all of the fuckers are bad, but even the good ones sometimes hurt too much like a sonovabitch to be welcome. The good ones unleash a longing inside him so deep and painful that he usually has to resort to something fierce to distract him, like a fight—something that rarely goes down well with the Governor—to carry the agony of it away. It shuts out the determination of his brain sometimes to wonder if Daryl had even gone looking for him or if his little brother had felt something like sweet relief to see the back of him. He knew he'd been no prince to be around, but they were blood, and no matter how fucked up Merle always seemed to be, Daryl somehow managed to hold all their shit together. It was a fucking marvel, and one that Merle feels he should acknowledge, but the shooting, splitting pain that brings him back to the here and now without any compassion for what he is leaving behind reminds him how dangerous it is to think too hard about all he's lost.

He is standing on the wall now, peering out at the darkness and trying to convince himself he doesn't feel the pain that starts to clamp around his skull. His day refuses to stop flashing through his head on repeat, stalling at certain moments when all he wants to do is forget it completely. His shift is almost at an end and he can already feel the tension roiling in his gut, his muscles stressed for the inevitable wind-down time that never quite works to his advantage. He is wishing for biters, a herd of the fuckers, just so he has something else to fight, to take his mind on a wander that isn't in his own head.

"Yo, Merle. Get your ass down here. Game's starting in ten." Martinez grins up at him and Merle treats him to a typical Merle-like glare.

"You pricks got anythin' decent you're playin' for? If all's you got is snickerdoodles, then I'm out."

Martinez chuckles, thrusts his hand in his coat pocket and pulls out a pack of cigarettes, shaking it enticingly. Merle can barely even get excited. The buzz he gets from nicotine is so short lived it's hardly worth the waste of his time to clown around for a few hours with these bozos. He finds that kicking his drug habit has strangely encompassed the smokes as well. If he has any it makes the craving for other shit all the more intense.

"Nope. Try again, motherfucker." He turns back to look beyond the wall, sighing in frustration when it remains walker-free.

"How 'bout this?" Martinez holds up what looks like a delicate, gold chain and Merle chokes on the bile that surges in his throat. Last time he's seen that chain it had been adorning the neck of a woman—her terrified, caramel-coloured eyes burning into him as she begged him not to hurt her. Not to hurt her little boy.

"The fuck would I do with that?" The bile is there in his mouth, burning his tongue and his throat and the guilt of it all scratches away at his brain. Trying to distance himself, distract himself, he spits over the wall.

"You could get yourself a woman," Martinez suggests lewdly, his hips gyrating in a way that Merle would once have said was a rip off of his own crude moves. Tonight, it just pisses him off to see someone else act so tough and badass when he isn't feeling it himself.

"Havin' a woman's nothin' but a pain in the ass," he declares, and feels uncharacteristic exhaustion settle over him all of a sudden. "Hell, just go. Think I'm comin' down with somethin' anyways. Gonna hit the sack and see if I can shake it off."

Martinez laughs as if Merle has just said the funniest thing he's ever heard. "Maybe you gonna shake somethin' else off, man?"

It's a good thing the asshole doesn't hang around for a reply, Merle thinks, as the pounding in his head gets worse. He thinks he's slipping. Not so long ago having a warm woman to pound into would have set his world to rights, as long as he also had his bike, his buddies and his pile of coke, he'd have been a pretty happy and satisfied man. This zombie apocalypse has fucked up all sorts of things, not just his creature comforts. No, it's fucking with his head, in the way that thinks about things, in the way he is comfortable with life.

He jumps down from the wall as soon as the change of shift arrives, nodding unseeing at the few figures still wandering the streets as curfew kicks in. He should have agreed to the card game, should have agreed to kill a few more hours of his night with meaningless shit, but already he knows it wouldn't have helped. He is about to be bombarded with visions of red—death, greed, depravity—and seeing it reflected as barter or winnings for a good hand of cards would engrave the wound even deeper on his soul.

His room is in a building directly opposite from the Governor's. At first Merle figured it had been the first spare room available, but since then he's come to realise that the Governor likes to watch his minions at every opportunity. Merle has always hated being watched, hated being observed, and it rubs him wrong something awful to know the Governor's beady eyes can track his every move from his own fucking home just by staring out his window while pretending to keep an official eye on the town.

His space is sparse—kitchenette and table with two chairs, a bed barely walled off from a small living room and his own bathroom. It was a palace compared to the tent he'd shared with Daryl at the quarry, but it's lonely, too. He hates being alone. His skin prickles with it, knowing exactly the kind of fucked up shit he has a reputation for sinking into when he's alone. Hell, he knows the kind of fucked up shit he gets up to when he's surrounded by people so when he's alone the stakes are merely raised to higher levels of total shit.

The Governor at least allows them alcohol to let their hair down, and Merle's impressive stash of bottles are emptier than most as he struggles nightly with the ghosts that like to haunt him. He could have won some tonight, if he'd gone to the game, and faced with a depleted supply of courage, he moans at what he will now have to face head on and completely sober.

The chair squawks as he twists and straddles it, his face buried in his arms as his knife attachment skims the table top. And then it plays out, the review of his day like the movies he has no chance of ever seeing again, though this one is horrifically vivid and not some made up story with a sappy ending. This one is a horror story that makes his own blood run cold, and he's played a leading role in it.

His first run after his arm had healed and he'd regained his strength and vigour, Merle had been shocked that the man behind the face of the town's leadership would be so hands on. Not only was it surprising that he would be right in the middle of possible walker herds, Merle was almost knocked over backwards when the man suddenly attacked the living, ruthlessly killing in order to take supplies, claiming their own need to be far stronger than the few scattered but surviving elderly, or those too weak to protect themselves, or those too strong to be anything but a threat. But the first time Merle sees Phillip Blake as the monster that he is, is when he put a gun against a child's head and didn't even blink when he pulled the trigger. His grin had been cruel as he then turned the gun to the screaming mother and repeated it like it was some kind of game. Merle had almost lost it then and there, but years of self-preservation had taught him how to make his heart slow against threats, how to harden his face so no one could see how he thought or felt.

The movie reel is moving faster, merging and fading before surging again in his mind's eye in liquid colour, bleeding into his brain. His body shudders with revulsion, seeing again the woman today, crying hard and hopeless as she held her little boy tight to her chest, her head shaking frantically no as the Governor and his boys beat the shit out of her husband and brother. Merle was left the task to take out the woman and her child but thankfully the noise from the others had attracted walkers and he left the store where this poor, doomed group had held up in before they'd come across them. The Governor could have offered them sanctuary—could have taken the half-starved group to Woodbury, fed them up and given them shelter and safety. Taken their loyalty. They had no food, but they'd had guns. Lots of them. Lots of ammunition as well, and so with greed thrumming through his blood, the Governor did what the Governor always does. He took, wreaking vengeance on those that had the misfortune of possessing what he wanted until he's wiped out the light from another human being.

Merle had taken out eight walkers in the street, purging their new world of the perceived undead threat while feeling sick at being under the thumb of the threat that was real, and dangerous, and sick as a motherfucker. He'd wanted to vomit the second the two quick shots rang out, the acid burning him from the inside, but before he could turn the corner, the Governor, Martinez and the others were out of the store, their haul carried immediately to their truck. The Governor looked at the sprawl of dead biters on the sidewalk and nodded, grinning his thanks to Merle for keeping them safe and the only thing Merle really wanted to do was bury his knife in the asshole's eye until it speared through his brain.

Instead, he acknowledged the silent approval with a jerk of his head and returned to the truck, his face solemn and stern, doing nothing to give away how sick he felt about what these people do, knowing that anyone that took the time or effort to realise what was going on around them would quickly consider him a part of it. And he wouldn't be able to blame them.

He can handle taking a life if it's needed. But women and kids…it's wrong. He knows it and can't justify it, no matter how hard he tries.

He raises his head from his arms and stares across the room into the darkened space of his kitchen, his eyes blurred from tears he refuses to acknowledge. He could leave this place, but then what? Where would he go? The only place he wants to be is with his brother, and he's got shit all chance of finding Daryl now. The Governor won't let him scout outside of the regular runs, won't let him go out on his own and so far Merle has found no sign of his little brother or any of the others from the Atlanta group. For the fuckers that left him up there to die it's a good thing, he wants to kill every last one of _them. _They left him to this, this half-life filled with poison and indifference and evil. They took away his brother, his miserable fucked up existence, the one where no one got hurt but himself. In this place, everyone gets hurt—even if they don't know it—and he hates every twisted minute of it.

The knock at the door is quiet, hesitant, and Merle jerks himself upright away from the chair, an angry hand swiping away all evidence of his distress before he stomps to the door and flings it open. _She's _standing there, again, like some kind of stalker that just won't get a clue.

"Thought you might like some supper after your watch. Martinez said you thought you were comin' down with somethin'."

She's pretty, he'll give her that, and he has no clue why she seems to be interested in him. Another day he might have invited her in, might have had a real good time trying to convince her to let him fuck her, but today isn't that day, not when he has another woman's death on his conscience, and that of her little boy.

"The hell you doin' wanderin' around after curfew?" Merle reaches forward, snatching the plate she's got covered with foil with only a grudging 'thanks' slipping past his frowning lips.

"The Governor said it would be okay, just this once." She smiles sweetly at him and Merle wishes he could smile back, wishes he could just take what she plainly wants to offer him, but tonight his soul is too sick for their usual flirting.

"Thanks for the food, but you should get your ass back home."

Her smile slips and he thinks, 'good', like he wants to hurt her even though she's never done anything but try to make him feel like he's more than he is. He knows the pickings are slim in this small world they've been left in, but he's still not the kind of man she should be aiming her shining eyes at. Especially when he's not even interested in anything that would be more than a one time deal.

"I thought maybe we could…"

"What?" His tone is harsh, impatient and she takes a step back, one hand at her throat while the other attempts to smooth over her blonde, curly locks.

"Talk. We could talk, or…or…"

"Or?" Merle's control is snapping, synapses sparking in his brain so violently it's making his head spin. "Darlin', you stay here one minute longer an' I'm gonna fuck you against this wall then throw you out on your pretty little ass. That's the only 'or' I got in me right now, so you best be on your way before I show you how much I really am that man you keep insistin' I'm not."

She squeaks, horror making her back away quickly before turning on her heel to flee.

"Oh, an' Eva?"

She turns back hesitantly, and Merle takes sadistic pleasure in the fact that he's made her afraid of him at last. "Don' come round here again after curfew, even if the Governor says it's okay."

He steps back into the room and slams the door, collapsing against it, warm plate still clutched in his hand. Four strides across the room he throws it onto the counter and heads for bed. That woman cooks food for the soul. Tonight, his soul isn't hungry.

**AN…I've gone back through and edited, added bits, changed bits on this chapter so many times I don't know if I'm coming or going. My experiment in the last fic with my writing style seems to have really screwed with my head, so if you pick up any major issues with this, please let me know. In the meantime, I'm seriously keen for feedback ;)**


	3. Chapter 3

**AN: **Firstly, this chapter is completely unbetaed. Secondly, I'm really not sure I achieved what I set out to do. It could just be that I've had no feedback on this chapter before posting so I'm not feeling confident. I can be silly like that I want to say how much I appreciate everyone that took the time to review. I realise Merle is nowhere near as popular as Daryl so the vast difference in feedback will take a period of adjustment, but the reviews for last chapter were so wonderful that I had to say it here as well. I'm about to go reply after posting this, but just know, thank you! Feedback really does help keep the ball rolling, whether you think so or not! Now, onward we go…

Part Two

_Carol_

"Are you all right?"

She stands over them, imposing, dark, beautiful and glorious and while Andrea nods a reply to the question, Carol tries to ascertain with a quick consultation with herself if she actually is okay. She's not so sure that she is, but can she imply any differently when she's alive, free from bites and scratches, and staring wide-eyed at their saviour? Her body is in agony, her breath causing actual pain on every intake and she knows she's going to have to get up, start moving again and just doesn't know if she has what it takes to get it done.

"Who are you?" This is what she says because she knows answering the woman's question is far too complicated for her oxygen deprived brain to handle.

The stranger flicks down her hood and the frown on her face seems darker now, more suspicious even though it's plain to see that Carol at least is no threat and that both of them are spent after fleeing relentless danger through the length of the night.

"My name is Michonne. And you?"

"Andrea," the blonde quickly interjects, "and this is Carol. We were staying at a farm near here but got separated from our group when a herd hit it last night."

She nods in acknowledgement of Andrea and then bends down, eyes straight and no nonsense as she stares straight at Carol.

"Can you walk?"

Carol frowns, not so sure she wants to, even if she can peel herself off the bed of leaves she feels glued to. Her whole body is screaming at her to not move even one muscle, and there's no way she can hold in the agonised moan that spills from her lips the second she tries. Andrea is there helping her, her arm around Carol's back as she's hauling her to her feet, flinching at the tears that are now making tracks down her face.

"We cannot stay here," Michonne warns them, her expression not quite friendly but not so hostile as before, either.

"I can walk," Carol says, and with shaky legs, she takes one step and almost cheers when her knees stay solid and she's left upright in order to take one more, and then another. With Andrea's help she strings several together and they are mobile, though she can tell that her friend is just as exhausted as she is. She sure hopes Michonne has a plan to stop somewhere close by because she just doesn't think they have the energy after hours of running to go far.

Their progress is slow, but at least they just have to worry about putting one foot in front of the other as Michonne takes care of any walkers that stumble too close. Many heads end up rolling along the forest floor, and every time Carol struggles to keep her stomach contents from introducing itself to the outside world. Her lids are drooping when finally Michonne hisses at them to stop, jerks her head toward the right at a path Andrea and Carol have missed as they shuffle one torturous step at a time toward an unknown destiny. They turn back to the path, Michonne following and leading her walker pets behind her. Carol glances back now and then; they give her the creeps. This whole, silent situation gives her the creeps. She can't stop the fanciful thoughts that start running through her mind, of that fancy sword of the woman's being wielded with destructive intent in their very near future.

A small cabin rises up out of the woods like a phoenix from the ashes of their destroyed lives and Carol nearly chokes on the sob that bursts from her. She wants to stay in that cabin. She doesn't care if a herd swarms around them while they sleep—she's as done as she's ever been and she can't drum up the will to care.

"Stay here," Michonne orders and Carol finds she has absolutely no problem following that instruction at all. What she does have trouble with is staying on her feet, already sensing the sway that has begun on her spaghetti legs could gain enough momentum soon to take Andrea and her supporting body out with her.

"It's clear," Michonne announces, tying her mutilated walkers to the stair railing out the front of the cabin. "We can stay here for a day, maybe two, for you both to rest. I didn't find any food, but I have a few cans in my pack." She eyes them both, noticing they have nothing with them other than the clothes on their back and the gun tucked into Andrea's waistband. "We will need to start looking for food and weapons as soon as possible."

"And clothing," Andrea adds. "These things are covered in walker blood and it feels like shit."

Carol bursts into inappropriate laughter at the thought of Andrea thinking of her wardrobe at a time like this. "We have to find the others," she says instead, trying to blot out all that she's lost. The farm, Sophia's grave, Dale, and now… "Rick and Daryl—"

"Probably already think we're dead and are long gone," Andrea says, and Carol knows it's the very last thing she's wanted to consider but also knows probably it's true. How could they possibly head back and what all hope was there really that even Daryl, as skilled as he is, can find them if they had the thought to try?

"So, we're on our own?" Her voice seems to have shrunk to something she can barely recognise and then she catches the flinch from Michonne and feels like an ungrateful bitch.

"Not alone," Andrea saves. "We have Michonne now. Girl power, baby. We'll be just fine."

Andrea is rubbing Carol's arm reassuringly, as concerned about things as Carol is but quickly assessing their options and coming up with no alternatives.

"Yes." Carol attempts to smile but even her face muscles are spent. "I don't think we even said thank you. We are so grateful you came along when you did. I'm pretty sure I was done for with that last one."

Michonne relaxes her severe expression for just a second, but it's enough for Carol to witness a tiny smile.

They stay for two days. By then Carol has recovered though her muscles still burn. They need to move on, scavenge for food and urgently, Carol needs a weapon that will wreak more havoc than her thick tree branch. Michonne leads them out of the woods into a town and still, it's hard work. They have such small energy reserves, already beyond hungry as the one can each of fruit and soup had been finished off the day before and it was hardly enough to sustain any kind of activity for long. Carol has never missed Daryl's gross Possums more. Suddenly she's terrified they'll never eat meat again, that with no skill to scrape together between the three of them to track and trap live game, they are going to starve as canned produce is snatched up by survivors in the same boat that they are in. They are surviving now, but how long can they continue like this? The question ticks in her brain and feeds her insecurities like wild flames in a dry bush.

It's an effort to push the darkness away, and every time they encounter a walker, Carol has to shove it back even harder. Eventually, she fears, the burden will get to be too dense, too overwhelming to push behind the need to survive and that moment, she knows, will be her last. She wants to be stronger, like she can see Andrea and Michonne are—two lawyers who had already been equipped for the ugliness of life, if not explicitly for the plague of death that suddenly befell the world.

Michonne's pets stumble along behind them, so at least she doesn't have to deal with continual running as the walkers just can't move that fast, but her heart is in her throat every second, her nerves ready to shred her apart whenever they stumble too close to her. Neither she nor Andrea have had the courage to ask Michonne why she has them—they haven't been able to get Michonne to say much of anything, in fact.

Just before nightfall they stumble upon a town. It is quiet, almost too quiet, and the absence of any walker presence at all sets her teeth on edge rather than relaxes her. Carol feels like she's in a perpetual state of fear and fully expects her heart to give out at any moment. Michonne is spurred into action, looking up one way then the next before dragging her walkers toward what looks like a small grocery store.

"We need to find food and water. In the morning we will search the other stores for weapons, blankets, clothes, anything else we might need." Together with Andrea she shoulders the door of the store open and the three of them enter, Michonne going first, sword brandished threateningly as she checks for any walkers inside. The lack of any just adds to Carol's misgivings. She's on edge—not knowing if all the walkers in this town combined with the herd that crushed Hershel's farm or if they have gathered someplace else and will descend back on the town as soon as the women have settled.

"How on earth did you stay alive on your own all this time?" Andrea aims the question at Michonne, but Carol's ear is tuned toward the answer. It seems like a miracle that anyone could continue to live in this world on their own. Sophia hadn't been able to. Or Merle. Unless he had. She guessed they really didn't know one way or the other on that, though he'd seemed the kind of man who would trust no one, even with a bleeding stump where his hand used to be.

"I sleep in a lot of trees."

Carol snorted, immediately covering her mouth and looking at the other two women in shock. It feels like she hasn't smiled in years, let alone actually laughed at something. She can't remember when the last time was, but the image of Michonne sleeping in a tree with her walker bodyguards at the bottom should have been far from amusing, but for some reason to Carol, it really is the funniest thing. Maybe it is the straw that breaks her completely, as she succumbs to giggles that quickly turn into hysteria. Andrea is there immediately, her arms going around her and patting her back.

"What is _wrong _with her?"

Carol can hear the impatience and disrespect in the dark girl's voice, and she resents it. She may have saved their lives, but she didn't get to lay judgement on what they'd been through. Not as far as Carol is concerned. She doesn't know them, doesn't know that they've lost sisters and daughters, archer's who are guardian angels, men who would lay down their lives for them, friends newly pregnant.

"She lost her daughter not long ago. Weeks, if that."

Carol feels annoyed that Andrea would attempt to explain, suddenly doesn't want Michonne to know everything about her.

"I'm fine," she reassures, wandering away from them and down the aisles of the store to find anything they can possibly eat. There's plenty there, if you wanted hand towels and plastic garbage bags. Bathroom cleaners. Mops. Any aisle that contained canned food is a mess, and in a spot of desperation, Carol lies on her belly to look beneath the shelves, sliding closer to pull out the cans that have rolled away in someone else's haste. She finds canned vegetables but her stomach is craving something more, something heavier so she continues the search, starting to stack what she does locate on the floor beside her.

She goes from aisle to aisle until she has a small pyramid of cans: fruit, vegetables, some tomato soup, one can of spam, a can of Hunter's Pork stew that makes her salivate, two cans of beans and three cans of ricecream. She's terrified that the sweetness will rip through their bodies, causing cramps and diarrhoea, but she's past caring, her belly growling so loud she would rather suffer than die of hunger, no matter how it decides to punish her body.

She is about to stand and go in search of can openers when Michonne is there, dropping a carry basket at her knees, a can opener already sitting inside. Carol quickly loads her bounty into it and stands, ready to move on but Michonne stalls her with one hand against her arm.

Carol pauses, looking at her hand in confusion before searching the other woman's gaze. What she sees is loss, and tears of hopelessness springs to her eyes.

"I'm sorry about your daughter," Michonne says, and Carol just nods. "I know what it's like, that kind of pain." They stare at each other and Carol is unsure what it is Michonne wishes to impart. Perhaps it is enough for them to connect, to know each other as mothers who have lost their whole world and now have nothing left but to continue to live each moment as if it will be their last. She can't help but wonder if Michonne ever has weak moments where she wants to give in, let those moments slide through her fingers and forget this world ever existed.

"Tomorrow we will find you a weapon." Michonne is certain on this and Carol has no reason to doubt her. "You may need to use it to protect Andrea or myself as well as defend yourself."

She's barely said a handful of words and just like that Michonne has reminded her that there is still purpose in the world—still responsibilities. She may want to cut out of this world and reunite with Sophia some days, but ultimately, she owes Andrea and Michonne her life and at the times they both had saved it, Carol had been fighting for it. Not giving up. Not surrendering to the swarm of walkers that had tried to take them down.

"Yes," she says, making a pact with herself. "I need a weapon. And some boots. These shoes…"

Michonne glances down and frowns. "Those shoes are useless."

Carol flinches even though the cuts and bruises her feet have sustained through the flimsy footwear prove the dark woman's point irrevocably.

They set up in a back office, closing the curtain before Michonne sets light to a small pile of papers and twigs. She and Andrea have collected a decent stash of wood to burn so that they have light and heat and so they crowd around it on the floor.

Andrea hands out forks that she's found in the store, selling in two packs, and Carol delights in not eating from the can like an animal.

Andrea chews thoughtfully, staring at the fire before speaking. "We need a plan."

Michonne and Carol nod, waiting to hear what Andrea has to offer next, but her lips have fallen still and Carol watches her uncertainly.

"I agree. We definitely need a plan," she prompts, waiting. Still nothing. Andrea and Michonne are silent and Carol stamps down her annoyance. "Okay, this is good. We can do this. We have a mini-plan, right? Food, clothes, weapons. What we need is transport—" Michonne's docile pets come to mind and Carol knows without a doubt she's not sharing a vehicle with those things, even if they don't have teeth or arms anymore, they still make her want to run for miles. "We need somewhere safe to stay. Are we gonna stay in Georgia? Are we gonna look for Rick and the others?"

"We need to keep to ourselves," Michonne interrupts the flow of her thoughts and Carol stops abruptly. "The only way to stay safe is to make sure no one else knows we are around. We need to keep alert, keep moving—"

"Moving where? We can't just spend the rest of our lives wandering half-starved through the woods. There has to be some purpose, some reason to keep going with this."

"There is a reason," Michonne grates out harshly. "We stay alive, we keep ourselves from being raped or murdered. By all means go if you're so desperate to find your group, just don't be so surprised when some other predator takes you out before you get there."

"Look, the situation is hell, I think we can all agree on that," Andrea steps in, the voice of reason trying to tone down Carol's panic. "Carol, I don't think we can find Rick and the others. It's not that I don't want to, it's just that we have no idea which way they went—which way _we _went. Our priority here is to each other—to stay alive. We're it now. We're all we have."

And that stark, final, horrible reality hits Carol right down deep in her soul. Just the three of them, wandering the earth like nomads, scrounging like beggars for food, trying to stay one step ahead of groups of men like Randall, and trying to keep warm in the rapidly approaching winter. The pathetic nature of this life they have ahead of them is cruel to the extreme. She wants to scream at how unaccepting of it she is, but there is no choice, nothing left for her to do but to follow and try to pull her weight in this new trio she finds herself a part of.

A painful knot of tears swell in her throat as she spears a carrot from her can and tries to chew it down enough to swallow. She gulps and it hurts. "I don't want to be a burden." Her fear comes out as a whisper but as it hits the air, Michonne sighs and her butt hits the floor, her sword scraping against the tile as it swings from her back.

"You won't be," she confirms. "I won't allow it. Nobody can be a burden in this world anymore. If you are, you're dead."

"Then I don't want to be dead." It's a strong declaration and Andrea looks up and smiles at her, leaning across and taking her hand, squeezing it hard.

"I'm so glad," Andrea says, and in that moment, their pact to each other is sealed.


	4. Chapter 4

AN: I don't know what to say about this one, really, so…you let me know what you think…

Part Three

_Merle_

He likes to hang out at the library. It feels old in there, weathered and calm with intelligence fairly bouncing off the walls. Most of the time it isn't manned, but he never goes there when it is—Old Mr. Wilson has a mean eye and as Merle has his own mean eye, he doesn't need to clash with someone else's. He likes to read, but that doesn't mean every fucker in the place needs to know that Merle Dixon is more than the redneck hick muscle they all think he is. Doesn't mean they all need to know that he _knows _shit, that he thinks about things and has an opinion on just about everything. And most necessarily, Phillip Blake doesn't need to know that Merle has a brain in his head that he likes to regularly feed with words on a page.

Merle is no stranger to the Old or the New Testament. When he was a kid and his ma tried to pretend all was right with their world, she'd teach him the scriptures and the gospel in the hopes he'd learn something important down deep into his soul. That he'd learn from the Good Book what was wrong and right in this world, not be guided by what his pappy deemed the proper way to pass on the lesson. She'd known even then her old man had a skewed sense of morality and Merle would give her her due, she'd tried to pass on something more meaningful, and as is always true in this world, she'd died before he'd ever shown her he understood. He knew right from wrong, always had even though he'd struggled with it. Just sometimes it didn't really matter what the difference was, or what side you _wanted _to stand on, circumstance was always the bitch that would guide your hand and then it was how hard you could become in your own head that decided if you survived the lesson or not.

In Woodbury, his days are made up of more wrong than right, and he has to be good with it lest his own head cave in from the pressure. Always wary of too many eyes logging him as he walks around the town, Merle slinks toward the darkened corner in the street and slips into the small building that serves as the town's library. His nights have been lonely, lately, surprisingly through choice, but he finds he needs a book to get him through the long hours now that he has banished all other company from his presence.

He can't avoid people in the day. His confidence in daylight has never faltered, his brash, crude words bouncing off more than one of the residents as he follows orders and keeps the town safe. Keeps them in the dark. At least once a week the Governor has his private circle go out beyond the wall, scavenging, exploring, searching for survivors that have anything that might positively enhance the town's own store of supplies and Merle has come to both hate and love those days. He loves getting out beyond the wall, feeling the fresh air in his face, the scent of nature in his nostrils—even if it is tainted now by the persistent stench of death—freedom beneath his feet. Sharing it with the other boys is hard, though, when all he longs for is to know that Daryl is still alive.

Most trips out they find little, but now and then they encounter a small pocket of survivors, groups of people that have banded together due to circumstance and a desperate will to survive. And every time he's torn, hoping that it isn't the Atlanta group with Daryl still tagging along, yet wishing for word of his brother. When it is expected, he steps up, kills, winding his way into the Governor's inner circle, benefiting from the Governor's solid trust. He's mastering the art of ignoring the small pieces of his soul that wither and die each time he commits murder, and he's excelling at forgetting their faces, except for those hours when he's asleep. When his eyes close, he remembers it all, and it eats away at him until he fears one night he'll wake up and there will be nothing of him left.

The world outside the library begins to darken and Merle takes a seat at the long table at the back of the little room, half hidden by one of the book shelves in case anyone comes in. He doesn't think anyone will; Mr. Wilson would have left hours ago to sit with all the other old farts that commiserate half the night about the lives and family they've lost but how grateful they are for Phillip Blake who has taken their care on. Merle thinks they're all fucking stupid and blind and he's disgusted in them. Old people are meant to be wise—they should know better. They should _see _better, and as his resentment builds that they see fucking nothing, vengeance burns a hole in his gut. He wants to leave, stop pulling the line that's attached to the Governor's dick so that he has a half-decent life while he waits for some clue to where Daryl might be, but when he's alone in his room, when he's blanking out the faces he's had to shatter with his gun, he thinks of all the ways he can kill Phil, and how he can make it hurt like a bitch.

"Revenge, the sweetest morsel to the mouth that ever was cooked in hell."

Good old Walter had it right, Merle thinks and on impulse starts searching the shelves. He feels inspired all the sudden and as his roughened finger pad rubs across the spines, he suddenly grins when he discovers it. Sir Walter Scott, The Heart of Mid-Lothian. Suddenly he feels a sense of positivity wash over him. There was nothing like a good prison drama. He heads home feeling satisfied and eager.

He's barely shut his door when there is a tentative knock and anger blitzes him. He knows who is on the other side and just imagining her face makes his fist squeeze tight. He flings the door open, staring at her completely speechless. She'd prettied herself up, he sees, make up tinting her lips and her cheeks blushing peach. A pretty, breezy top buttoned almost all the way to the top reveales just a hint of cleavage and a lacy pink bra that he has absolutely no interest in knowing about.

"Thought I told you not to come 'round here after curfew?" he says angrily, not giving two shits as her colour heightens and she looks between the floor and him nervously.

"It's not curfew yet, and I needed to talk to you about something." Before he knows what's what, she's put her little hands against his chest and shoves and then she's in his space, and he's spitting mad about it.

"You got thirty seconds before I throw your ass out into the street," he growls at her, prowling up close until he's staring down furiously into her face.

She's all nerves, backing up away from him and wringing her hands together before she makes some kind of decision and her back straightens. He knows that steely-eyed look of determination that's blossomed on her face and he feels like kicking her for trying it on with him. He'd have thought most folks around here would know by now that it's useless trying to pull that shit on him. If he says no to something, they'd learned pretty fast there is little point asking again, but this pretty little thing seemed braver than most. Braver, but shit for brains stupid as well.

Briefly Merle wonders why he's so resistant to her. He's never been above accepting a bit of pussy whenever it's been offered, and she's offering herself up on a silver platter with bells on. Maybe that's what turns him off—the fact that she's played the same game on all the single men in this town. He knows she's afraid—she's a woman in her thirties all on her own and all she wants is someone to look out for her. He knows the other boys have used her then kicked her to the curb, and ordinarily he'd have jumped right on in and taken all she has to give, but maybe his multiple bouts of the clap have finally started to sink in and maybe the world being destroyed by biters has made him a little more choosy about where he decides to stick his dick. And maybe, just fuck it all, it really pisses him the hell off that any woman would dare come up to him and beg him to protect her. That's not who he is. Merle Dixon doesn't do anything but protect his own fool skin—and that of his brother's, whenever he's got Daryl around.

She's nervous, and strangely silent as she watches him in hopes of gauging something from his stance to give her encouragement. His demons are starting to come crashing in and he's entirely sick to death of this shit, day in and day out.

"Clock's tickin', sweetheart."

She jumps at the harsh boomof his voice as it bounces around the small apartment and he can see the second that she realises she's made a mistake coming to him.

"Why don't you like me?" She looks like she's about to cry and it pisses him off even more, that she'd come to him, burden him with her fear and then just about burst into tears and expect him to do something about it.

He ain't inclined to do shit about it.

"You're lookin' at it all wrong, darlin'. I don't like or dislike you. Your problem is in assumin' I think anythin' about you at all."

She gasps and he feels slightly guilty for being cruel, but Jesus Christ, can't she latch onto Martinez or any of the other fellas and leave him the hell alone?

"Do you have a wife? A girlfriend? Is that why you're not interested? I can wait, let you grieve, or…whatever."

Her spiel comes to an abrupt end as she watches the storm he's sure is washing over his face.

"I ain't got a wife, or a girlfriend, or even a fuckin' dog. You know what I found out real quick out there, Ava? Life's short. Too short to sell yourself just for a man's protection. I stand on that wall and I keep the biters out. That's me doin' my service for you and the others in this little corner of paradise. If I got an itch to scratch, I'll do the chasin'. Now get the fuck home, I got shit to do."

"It don't have to be about that, Merle. We could get to know each other, be friends first?"

He can't stop the laughter that erupts from him like a boiler blowing off steam. He's shaking his head, amused at how persistent she is and for a minute he wonders why he doesn't just do it. Suddenly he feels far too weary to resist anymore.

"Why the fuck not? Fine. Friends. Now go home."

Her smile is one of success and he guesses she thinks she's finally got him where she wants him, but he knows something she doesn't. He'll never be where anyone wants him, let alone her. He doesn't do friends—never has, never will. He has allies or enemies, nothing in between except his blood. Family. Daryl's the only one he'll ever let get that close and he's certain no fucking woman has a chance of breaking through that wall, especially not a twisted little bitch that thinks she can trade her pussy for a sure thing that she'll never get bit. He looks after his own ass, first and foremost. Other than his duty on the wall, he doesn't give a shit whether these people live or die and when Jesus Christs sees fit to rain hell down on their heads, Merle's going to be sure he's as far as he can be out of the place.

He waves her away, cringing at the newfound confidence in her step, hips swinging. She looks back over her shoulder to check to see if he's watching her ass and he's furious that she catches him doing just that. He's not fucking blind, he knows she's got assets and he wonders if he should maybe kick his own ass for not tapping that when she's offered it to him so many times already. The pursuit is half the fun of the conquest, and she just keeps making it too easy. There's no hunt, no skill involved with catching her and it turns him off. She turns him off, and he wonders when the fuck he suddenly got standards when it comes to bitches.

He slams the door on his thoughts and on her retreating ass, and plucks the book out from where he's held it under his jacket. Night is pushing through his windows now and Merle stomps angrily to his window, drawing the curtain closed. Before his hand reaches the fabric he can see Phillip across the way, the man toasting him with the glass of whatever is in his hand. Merle tips his head in acknowledgment, wondering what Phil must have made of the little scene that has just played out in Merle's apartment, before drawing the curtain closed. He feels sick that if Ava had had her way, Phil would be watching a show right about now and he can't help but sense that the Governor's dissatisfaction will somehow come back to bite Merle on the ass.


	5. Chapter 5

AN… My apologies this has taken so long. I'm a little overwhelmed at the moment with other commitments. This chapter is not only unbetaed, but unread by eyes other than mine, which means it could be a whole heap of crap, so I will wait to hear from you all if it's okay or not.

Part Four

Carol wakes with a jolt, her foot slashing through the air and connecting with something, her knife in her hand before her eyes even adjust fully to the dark.

"Whoa, it's just me," Michonne hisses through the night and Carol's breathing struggles to return back to normal. "But hell, girl, that was an excellent response. You're really getting it."

Carol flushes with pride, glad no one can see her pink skin tone in the lack of light, but then fatigue hits her as she lowers the knife and she wonders what's going on.

"I just did watch. Why're you wakin' me now?" She hears a soft rustling in the corner of the room and becomes instantly more alert, locating Andrea now as she swiftly tosses their few things back into a pack and readies herself to move.

"There's walkers coming up front. We need to get out before we're surrounded. Be silent." And then Michonne is gone, Carol quickly rising, glad she's now used to sleeping in her boots and sleeps on her already packed pack except for her blanket. She's ready to go in about twenty seconds, and the three of them touch hands briefly before they gather at the back door of the shack and as quietly as they can, slink like wraiths back into the night.

It's the same scene the next night, and then every night for two weeks until Carol realises she's almost run ragged. None of them get much sleep, but at least they've shaken up their watch schedule so a different one of them is the one waking the others and so they can manage a few hours per night like that. Michonne's pets aren't acting quite the deterrent they need them to be, and not for the first time Carol wonders why she drags their animated corpses around with them.

Each place they find seems emptier than the last, and as Carol's belly shrinks, she doesn't think she's ever been as hungry as she is now. Michonne is fast with her sword, but even then they've not had much success hunting live food and it's at night, when they're sitting around a small, almost useless campfire sharing a single tin of food, that Carol misses Daryl the most. Feels like kicking herself for never making the effort to learn something useful from any of the members of her old group that would aid in their survival now.

They've been wandering around the woods now for months, never venturing too far into civilization, knowing that the more built up areas means more walkers to wade through, and while Michonne's craft was beautiful to behold and Carol's skills were improving, with Andrea learning to rely more on her knife than her gun, they still wouldn't stand much of a chance if a herd found them.

"I never thought I'd say this, but God I miss burgers and fries," Andrea dreams wistfully, and Carol's belly grumbles loudly in agreement.

"Steak," Michonne adds thoughtfully around the mouthful she's just scooped from the tin.

They both turn to Carol and she wonders what it is she'd eat if she could choose anything in the world. She feels frozen to the bone, greasy and dirty and so weary that she thinks she could well fall over the next time she tries to stand. She isn't so sure she can choose: Chinese food, a roast, tomatoes, ice cream, the thought of it all and how hungry she is swells up inside and she bursts into tears.

"Cheese," she says around a sniffle and Andrea leans over and gives her a quick hug.

"I miss dick," Michonne says straight-faced, promptly cracking the widest grin she's ever shown them as Andrea snorts and Carol stares at her, eyes wide.

"Yeah, have to admit, vibrators will do in a pinch but they just don't replace the sensation of heavy set shoulders and a willing mouth, and a hard, long—"

"Andrea!" Carol interjects, not sure if she's scandalised or titillated. "So…did you and Shane ever…?"

Andrea's shit-eating grin answers that question and Carol giggles.

"I thought so. How was he?" She looks on eagerly, suddenly fine with living precariously through someone else's activities. It's been so long since Carol has been with a man—even when she was with Ed it had been a while, something she'd been ever grateful for. But now, the girls talking about it stirs up something inside her that Carol thought was long dead.

"Thick." Andrea winks and the three of them laugh, releasing some tension that had been building up through the long days and nights of their nomadic life.

"Shane was that cop you mentioned?" Michonne knows everything about them now, and Carol speculates at her eagerness to learn all she can about them when she shares so very little about herself, but instead of making her leery, it just makes her care more. There is hurt down deep inside of Michonne and as Carol steals a glance at the pets chained to a tree nearby, she can't help but wonder if they have anything to do with it.

Michonne rarely talks of anything personal, her voice always low and close to the heart. Andrea had asked about her pets around the fire one night, all of them sitting there, freezing and trying to eat crudely warmed stew from a tin. Carol watched closely as Michonne betrayed with watery eyes that she'd known those two when they were still men, and at first Carol suspected they were loved ones the warrior-like girl couldn't bear to part with, until the rough confirmation spilled from their saviour's lips, that these men had never been men, more like imposters in animal's clothes that had got exactly what they deserved. Carol knew the type of course, and it forged a new bond with Michonne. It had shocked Carol, though, that the woman would drag a reminder of an unhappy life behind her, but who was she to judge? Everyone dealt with their pain differently—she knew this better than anyone. And even while she was slightly disturbed by the sight and the knowledge, she couldn't help but imagine what it would have been like to smash Ed's jaw, decapitate his arms and drag him around on a chain, using him to keep the monsters away instead of being the monster that she'd feared helplessly for years. The image hadn't horrified her quite like she'd thought it would—didn't make her feel ill. She'd ended _that _daydream with a smile.

"Yeah, that man was all hard," Andrea shares, drawing attention back to the physical attributes of Shane and Carol sighs, more than a little envious. It wasn't like any of the men in camp had ever looked at her—not when someone young and beautiful like Andrea was around, and it was just stupid of her to be bothered about it now. She was still the old grey mare surrounded by beauty, and while out in the woods it hardly mattered, it still stung.

"What about you?" Andrea stares at her, her eyes wide as she waits for some confession that Carol has no clue about, and she can't push back the finger of resentment that springs up within her that Andrea would ask her something she so obviously has no experience with.

"What about me?" She feels nervous suddenly, like there is something just under the surface that she's missing but which everyone else seems to know.

"You and Daryl seemed kind of close," Andrea implies and Carol just sits there on the damp ground, stunned. There had been times when she'd felt close to Daryl, felt a connection built on more than just his devotion to searching for Sophia, but the other times she felt she'd never been so distant from a person in her life. Daryl was not a man to get close to women. She'd known that on some level, and yet occasionally he'd tried to be her friend, but she doesn't think she was ever successful in making that work.

"What do you mean?" She still hasn't quite made the connection Andrea is digging at, but when she does she feels shock so sudden it leaves an empty hole in her chest. "You mean, did I have sex with Daryl?"

Andrea is nodding enthusiastically, like she's about to hear the best kept secret of all time, but Carol feels slightly nauseated. "Andrea, he was searching for my daughter. I wasn't even thinking like that, and even if I was, I think I'd be the last woman Daryl Dixon would have ever wanted to get naked with."

"Why do you say that?" Michonne asks abruptly, weighing into the conversation with a heavy awareness that makes Carol jump.

She blinks stupidly, wondering if both of them are blind. "Well, ignoring the fact that that man has trust issues, can't stand to be touched, and is scarred a mile deep, I'm hardly the kind of woman men want to throw down and have wild, naked sex with."

She hates that Andrea is contemplating her like she's just crawled out from under some rock naked and that Michonne is staring at her hard, like she's a puzzle that Carol herself is the only one that hasn't cracked yet.

"Why not?" Michonne looks her up and down and Carol feels an uneasy burn start in her belly. "I'd fuck you, if I liked girls. You think because your hair is grey that you're unattractive?"

"No," Carol splutters, face flaming and her senses suddenly on alert from disbelief. "I know I'm old and past my use by date as far as being a sexual object goes." She feels even more uncomfortable as Michonne drops the can by the fire and comes to kneel before her.

"Did some asshole tell you that?" she asks, her face scrunched up and furious. "He was wrong. You have elegance about you many would kill for, regal almost. Lady, you are far from unattractive, and the first man we find that isn't a psychotic killer,_ you_ are going to fuck them stupid."

Carol chokes on a hysterical laugh, coughing and spluttering as she shifts nervously back from Michonne. Her hands are fisting dirt and leaves from beside her ass on the ground and she can't help but feel a little scared at the intense look Michonne is aiming at her, but looking to Andrea is no help at all as the blonde sits there nodding in agreement.

"She's right, Carol. Ed was an ass and you know that anything he ever said to you was complete shit. You're what? Forty two? Three? That's only a couple of years older than me, and now your hair is getting longer…you just don't even know yourself how beautiful you are, do you?"

She's had enough, she decides, standing so that she's not feeling quite so intimidated by Michonne anymore.

"What I know," she says, avoiding them as she goes to fiddle with her pack and pull out an extra sweater. It's thin and grey and ugly but they really can't be choosy anymore. Most of the places they've managed to find refuge in haven't had much of a woman's touch. "What I know is, we can't keep wandering like this. It's getting harder and harder to find food and if we want to survive, we need to find somewhere to stay longer than a day. It's cold, might even snow soon." She paused, her cheeks burning as she turns away from them and stares into the endless blanket of trees. "We haven't even seen a man for months."

Michonne has received the message, loud and clear, and she's backed off, nodding her head thoughtfully. "I think it's time we check out houses in the suburbs. We'll find better clothes, the pantries should have more food, and there might be vegetable gardens."

"We won't find anywhere safe to stay in there," Andrea protests, and Carol can already sense the ripple of fear as the three of them contemplate how on earth they can do this without ending up dead.

"No, it will have to be quick. In and out, get what we can and leave," Michonne confirmes, but there's determination in her expression and Carol admires it, and respects it. She wants to emulate it and wonders how she got to be so old without having this kind of a backbone and strength to stand up for her own convictions.

No one disagrees and instead they prepare their small camp for a sudden departure should it come to that in the night, with Carol sitting back down and lifting her knife. It's sharp and heavy, but she knows how to use it now with a veracity that devastates and she's proud of that. She wishes she could show Sophia how well she can protect herself now, but as soon as thoughts of her little girl come into play, the tears come. If only she'd picked up a knife at the quarry, learned then how to wield the weapon, it could have been her that ran after her daughter into the woods, not Rick, and she'd have been prepared. She'd have been able to kill those two walkers, not leave her little girl behind and on her own while she ran off looking for a weapon.

"I'll take first watch," Andrea says quietly, her voice almost disappearing into the eerie silence of the night. Carol nods, curling up beside Michonne so they can at least share some body heat, and her lids grow heavy as tortured images of an alternate story for Sophia plays on rewind in her head.

A quiet whimper from Michonne through the night tells her the other woman has her own nightmares to deal with. She sleepily catches Andrea's eye and they share a sad smile. There was no one that didn't have nightmares anymore.

* * *

The good houses—the ones made of brick with pretty rooms and nice furniture, framed photos on the walls, plentiful clothing, cans in the pantry—are all located in the suburbs. They are tastefully decorated—the ones that have not been burned or destroyed by others. Carol isn't sure if those others are looters or someone smarter trying to make sure other survivors don't get what they need to make it in this world. Carol knows there are people out there—cruel, heartless people that want to see the weak surrender to the earth. People like the group Randall had been moving along with. She doesn't feel afraid of them anymore, her own conviction in her growing skills at survival enough to push it away. The line between what she was and what she is now has been drawn darker than any other part of her life so far, and Carol can't keep the bitterness back at how weak she'd been in the past. How much of a failure she'd been to her child. How useless she'd been to the group.

Not anymore. She's strong now, as strong as one can be when half starved, and as the three of them carefully navigate around pockets of lazy, aimless walkers, stranded cars and overturned garbage bins in the streets, they start to make their way into people's homes, and the guilt she might once have felt vanishes completely in this resolute determination to do what it takes to live.

There is so little fear now, the emotion punctuated only in short gasps when they run into trouble, but so far they've been lucky, their deadly and precise moves honed so well that they've managed to eradicate any threat within minutes of contact. They've been careful, though, keeping to the outskirts where only sporadic walkers amble around, getting quickly away if it looks like there will be too many gathered together for the three of them to handle.

Sneaking into the first house isn't so difficult, the majority of walkers in this area seemingly concentrated further into the centre of the development, but they still take care as they quietly and swiftly examine each house, searching for food in the kitchens and clothes in the cupboards. There is no time for them to be patient, empty pantries showing them that they need to go deeper as others have had the same idea as them. Michonne takes them into a back lane, and somehow they twist and turn until they find themselves in the centre, the houses more uniform and closer together.

In every house there is at least one walker, in most of them the family has never left, though some are just dead outright. Carol's eye roams over the tragedies with a distant envy, telling them all quietly that they are the lucky ones that they don't get to see what their world has become, but when they find food at last, the tears flow from not just her eyes, their relief staggering, and they search for bags to stow as much of it as they can. In the same house, Andrea wanders off to the bedrooms, then quickly comes back and drags Carol away.

"Try on these boots," she whispers, handing Carol a pair of calf high black leather boots with a mid-heel and a zipper up the side. They look fashionable, but as soon as Carol slips them on her feet the comfort resonates right through her legs and into her gut. She turns to thank Andrea but finds her friend has found other treasures, a thick and long, heavy leather jacket with numerous pockets and another, plum corduroy coat. There are jeans and shirts and without asking, Andrea finds a holdall in the closet and shoves as much in as she can before diving for the underwear drawer. She throws the bag to Carol, fills her own with a few more things and then they are running from the place, Michonne carrying one of the bags of tins and Carol and Andrea taking the other between them.

The weight of their find makes them slower, noisier, and trying to escape draws attention. They stay silent, each attacking whenever the need arises, behaving in a tandem they've perfected in the months they've banded together. They are almost away when Carol feels a jerk on the back of her pack and the bag of cans slips from her grasp and her new holdall falls with a thunk to the road. With a grunt she twists, ducking before any teeth can sink into her shoulder and she comes up swinging, her knife buried sideways through the walker's head. As soon as it drops there is another, and Carol finishes it off fast, but then another and another heads toward her and the adrenaline is pumping viciously through her veins when Michonne is there, too, her sword slicing through two heads before she's running back, pushing Carol into picking up her bag and following Andrea who has already escaped with the rest.

It's dark before they stop running, stop looking over their shoulders every second step, and Carol is so tired she can barely stand upright. They are out in the open, lost like the abandoned cars they've passed to get there. Michonne extracts her torch from her pack and the light is flickering weakly, but it's enough for them to move toward a lonely car on the side of the road. They have no choice but to hole up there for the night, and with relief, Carol sags against the seat in the back and closes her eyes. She's almost asleep when Michonne bumps her arm. Carol blinks wearily, barely propping her eyelids open but her lassitude doesn't quite blank out the smell of corn in the tin Michonne is trying to hand her.

Carol takes it gratefully, pulling out her blanket with stiff fingers as she tries to hold the fork that Michonne is passing to her next. It isn't so easy while her hands feel numb, but she does, groaning at the exquisite taste of the kernels as they crunch between her teeth.

When she's finished, she curls up within her blanket, says good night to the girls and immediately falls asleep.

She only wakes later, as the sky begins to lighten, when a tiny cough tickles at her throat.


	6. Chapter 6

**AN:** Non-Marol and Merle smut warning. This does not paint Woodbury women in a good light, and some might consider this non-consensual. I don't—well not the first incident anyway— but maybe I'm weird.

Part Five

Merle

When Phil sends him to find Martinez, he knows exactly where to look. Up behind the storage sheds, right by the back wall but tucked out of view of those on watch. Merle takes his time, hears the groans and pants and grins sadistically, rubbing his own crotch as it gives a little twitch in memory.

Some bitch is slurping around Martinez's dick as Merle rounds the corner, her back to him, hair dishevelled from the Mexican's fingers getting a good grip as he thrusts carefully into her mouth. He's grunting, head reared back and eyes clenched shut, his cock glistening with spit every time he pulls out, and right before he's about to blow, Merle's there to interrupt.

"Hey, Martinez. Gov'ner's askin' for ya. Says it's time for some shit or another."

Merle props himself against the wall, arms and feet crossed and enjoys the show. He knows the girl wants to stop, the bare flash of her cheek coloured crimson, but Martinez doesn't release her hair, a sinister grin splitting his face as sweat soaks his skin. He jerks his hips, plunging deeper into her mouth despite her garbled objections and when he's ready to finish, he pulls back and his jizz spurts all over her face. She's horrified, finally standing up and swirling slightly in his direction and Merle sees it's that girl Hayley, the one that totes around a crossbow even though she doesn't know shit what to do with it. He wishes he could thieve it and give it to his brother so the weapon could actually get a bit of a workout. She's also the bitch that was warming Phil's bed only last week.

"Hey, Merle. You wanna go? Hayles has a _sweet _little mouth," Martinez offers, tossing her a do rag to clean her face.

"Mighty temptin'," Merle says, eyeing her tits and the flushed, ashamed look on her face. "Haveta say no, though. Pity. Phil said she's got a tight pussy an' an even tighter ass."

Martinez's eyes pop wide open and Merle can see the gears in his brain churning overtime.

"Really?" He drags Hailey up from where she's still kneeling, rips her shirt up and over her head to expose her tits, before thrusting his hand down the front of her jeans to finger her snatch. She's moaning before Merle even has the energy to chuckle. "You jealous, Merle?"

"Oh man, completely," he admits, though really he's feeling slightly nauseated. He's a badass, though, so there's no way he's walking away while some pussy like Martinez tries to fake him out. "Shit, man. Even with one hand I'da had her pants round her ankles by now, pumpin' into her some sweet, sweet love."

Her jeans hit the dirt and the Mexican's rapidly recovered cock slams into her, her back impacting hard with the wall. Merle winces, wonders if she's going to end up with splinters in her bare ass. The look on her face is one of shock, though it's warring with something else, and before too long Merle realises she's enjoying putting on a show. She's mortified but turned on as well, arching her tits into Martinez's face as her eyes lock on Merle's. He licks his lips and leers at her, enjoying the loud moans that elicit from her throat as she gives in to being totally fucked in a back alley. It gives him the best laugh he's had in months.

"I'll jus' tell the Gov'nor you're busy then?"

Martinez grunts like an angry bull, his dick banging into her pussy so fast Merle's afraid the dipshit's going to break something.

"Or maybe you'll get done in under thirty seconds," he taunts, barely getting the insult out of his mouth before his usual watch partner gallops home like a racehorse, thrusting brutally into her as he spills another load all over her.

He sniggers as he steps away, knees weak from his double effort, and refastens his pants.

"Thanks, Hayles," Martinez tosses over his shoulder as he looks back at her with disgust. "Get some fucking clothes on. You want to get caught looking like that? Shit. Some women, yeah, Merle?"

Merle nods at her, almost feeling sorry for how she's summarily dismissed, especially when a single tear starts to slide down her cheek. It's a harsh world they all live in now, and the fairer sex really are in a position of fragility now that men have no laws to hold them in check. Merle wonders if any of them even have morality left. Not many of the men that walk the wall do, and not for the first time does he feel ashamed of all the women he's fucked without a care over the years. All the skanks he's probably treated as poorly as Martinez just has with Hailey. It isn't that he's given up on pussy these days, just that he doesn't like the way it's offered up like it's barter for protection. Hailey, he knows, is full of tough talk, eager to stand on the wall to protect those within, but given half a chance her fucking arrows still wouldn't hit a walker in the head.

They meet up with the Governor around the front of the main building where he is gathered with two others, waiting for them. The truck is all loaded up and they're ready to head out, just waiting impatiently for Martinez. Merle's staying behind this time. He hasn't worked out yet if his exclusion is some form of punishment for fuck knows what or selfless consideration for the fact that he was out hunting meat all day yesterday and will be again all day tomorrow. Doesn't know if the Governor is off on a mission that he wants to keep Merle in the dark about, or if it's nothing more than a routine run. As long as the prick hasn't found Daryl and the Atlanta group, Merle doesn't think he half cares. Looks forward to the break, in fact. Looks forward to not being stuck in the middle of some moral ambiguity that Phil seems to thrive on.

Merle breathes a little easier as he stands at the gate, swinging it shut as the truck drives on through. He can literally sense the bugs falling from his back, the skittering pinch of eyes always on him finally absent and he wonders what fun he can get up to while the cat's away. He wants to play, the hot little scene from earlier having his blood thundering straight through his veins on a straight path North to his dick. Before he finds anything else to do in this little slice of anti-paradise, he needs to release some tension. Flinging a careless wave at the boys left on watch, he strides across the street to his place, already reliving the scene between Martinez and Hailey. His fingers are fiddling with the top button of his pants, ready to pop it open the second his door comes into sight, but waiting right in front of it is Ava and he's fucked if he's going to put up with her shit right now. He's already hard, straining against his pants and her eyes have zeroed in on his need like a torpedo seeking its target.

"For fuck's sake, girly. Go home."

She doesn't listen and instead, as he unlocks his door and shoves it open with his shoulder, the little bitch follows. His temper swells as tight and hard as his dick and before he's even swung the door closed, her hand is grasping for her prize down his pants.

His first impulse is a wild one, the image of his metal stump colliding with her head vaguely making him swell anew, but then he feels the draft from his open window as his pants slump around his ankles and her hot, silken mouth has opened up wide and taken him in. He clenches his jaw against the pleasure, gets lost in it for a brief minute before the anger steals away any enjoyment he could get from her. He's warned her off many times, pushed her away as bluntly as he knows how, and still she doesn't get it. He refuses to be indebted to anyone in this place. As soon as he finds Daryl, he's gone, and he's not going to waste a second thinking about any of them. Especially not her. No woman has ever forced him when he's told them to fuck off; admittedly he's not told many to fuck off in the past. Pussy is pussy, he's always thought, but now, when there's less skanks to choose from and less doctors to cure the burning dick the bitches give him, he's forced to be more careful. Forced to care more.

She hums against his cock as his fingers thread through her long hair. He almost loses his determination when her hand snakes up under him and cups his sack. She's working her mouth up and down his shaft and just as she hits bottom and his tip brushes the back of her throat, he roars and rips her head back, flinging her to the side. He pulls his pants back up and throws her a vicious glare.

"You must have real shit for brains, darlin'. When a man does all he can to tell you to fuck off, an' that man's got a knife extended from his arm, you best be listenin' real clear to the words." He knows he looks dangerous and he's gratified by the fear that now makes her shake as she stands slowly and backs away.

"Hailey told me if I had any chance at all, it was now."

And now he's imagining the gory satisfaction of skewering Hailey's foul mouth with his knife.

"This town ain't nothin' but full o' damn whores. Get the fuck out. Now."

He's breathing hard, his nostrils flared, his eyes narrowed as he watches her run, his dick still jutting up out of his pants as he kicks the door after she's gone. It's still wet from her spit so Merle falls back against the door and with his left hand, finishes what Hailey and Martinez started. The release isn't half as satisfying as he thinks it would have been if he'd done the whole job himself.

* * *

He's completely bored out of his fucking mind by late morning. He's due on the wall late afternoon, so he has nothing to do but wait. There's nothing but shit to do around the town anyway and after Ava's failed attempt to buy his protection with an impromptu blow job, he feels antsy and tense.

He's walked around the perimeter three times when he realises he's stopped at Mr. Coleman's door. He walks in without knocking, takes a seat at the old man's bedside and nods dismissively at the old woman who has been nursing him. She leaves quietly, and as the old man catches his eye and smiles behind all the pain he must be in, Merle reaches his good hand beneath the bed and pulls out a book and starts to read Moby Dick.

"Chapter Four: The Counterpane," Merle starts, his voice immediately dropping to a soft, husky southern drawl that lulls the old man into a cancer-riddled sleep before his words die on the last page of the chapter. Merle replaces the book under the bed, knowing that no one knows who is reading it to the old man and that it will sit there, untouched, until the next time he calls by.

He visits Mr. Coleman to remind himself that not everyone dies at the hands of biters. He knows that everyone turns, no matter how they leave this world, and it shocks and saddens him that this is the case. This old man has volunteered to be one of the Governor's experiments—one of Milton Mamet's experiments—and Merle's lip curls in disgust. It's a waste of time, studying the biters. A body dies and they turn, nothing left to remind anyone of who they might have been before it happens. He's seen it too many times to doubt it now, but Milty feels the need to see it first hand, like he can't trust anyone else's say so on the matter.

He's on the wall when the Governor drives back through the front gate. Nothing seems unusual or different, no one is looking at him oddly, and so he dismisses the run as nothing special, barely even registering as the boys unpack, bid Phil a goodnight, and then head to opposite directions. His day has been so fucking pathetic he wants to puke. He almost wishes he'd gone with them on whatever pointless mission Phil had invented, but then the thought that the next time he's bound to leave these walls might be the time he encounters his brother's group and be forced to slaughter people with faces he's known fills him with dread, and Merle is smart enough these days to know that those nightmares might not be so easily banished.

When he returns to his place in the middle of the night, flops on his bed with boots still laced and eyes that stare at the ceiling, he remembers back to the last time he saw Daryl at the quarry, heading off to hunt in the woods while Merle went into the city with the others. He hates that pig for cuffing him to the pipe, hates that motherfucker nigger that was going to leave him there before a crisis of conscience had him tripping back and dropping the key down a drain anyway. But most of all, he hates himself for getting high and letting a situation get so out of control that he may never see Daryl again.

It's not tears in his eyes as he closes them to force himself to sleep. It's just dust.

**AN: **Now, interested to know, are you all sick of the little building up chapters and want me to just get them to Woodbury or do you think there is still more to explore before we get there?


	7. Chapter 7

AN…Quite incredibly, I've bashed out another chapter. I know I'm probably a little bit greedy, but please, if you're enjoying this fic at all, let me know? It isn't getting much love and while I do understand the pairing probably isn't a huge favourite, there's still enough of you out there to let me know you're reading. I truly hate to beg but…I'm begging…on hand and knee…

Part Six

Carol

"What would you be doing right now if the world wasn't shit?" Andrea asks, her voice cracking the calm silence that has settled between them us as they wander through the woods, again aimless.

"Kicking off my heels, pouring a glass of wine and relaxing in my armchair," Michonne says and Carol smiles at the wistful note in her voice that twists within the curl of wind around them.

"That sounds nice." Carol refuses to feel envious. There's no room left in this world for jealousy of the lives these women had experienced in a world before walkers. What would be the point when their lives now were shit? Despite Ed, she can't claim hers was bad before disaster had hit—she'd still had Sophia, after all, and having Sophia was the only blessing her life has ever had.

"I'd have been boinking my boss, probably on his desk," Andrea admits as her boots crunch the twigs and leaves beneath their feet, a smug smile on her face.

Carol laughs. "God, Andrea, what did you do other than screw men?"

Andrea stares at her and for a second Carol feels guilt squash all sign of amusement from her, wondering when she's learned to be so brash, blurting words that pop up in her head before thinking hard about them first.

The blonde blinks, and then shakes her head, the smile turning from smug to vulnerable in the space of three seconds. "You know, I'm not really sure. I've always been in a relationship—or…I guess an affair. I never thought too hard about it."

Michonne stops their trek, the chain in her hand rattling as her pets stop behind them. "There is more to life than men."

Carol darts a quick look at their undead followers, eyes them thoughtfully and without fear. "I would have been gettin' dinner ready and compiling a list in my head of all the ways I could kill Ed and get away with it."

Andrea gasps, stares at her incredulously, then bursts into a spurt of genuine laughter. "I take it you didn't come up with one? There's really not many ways to get away with it, unfortunately. I've seen some creative attempts in my time, though. Much better that you waited for a walker to do it for you."

"I couldn't do it," Carol confides, feeling that overwhelming sense of failure flood through her once again, but new faith in herself forces her to shrug it off immediately. "I had to protect Sophia. God knows what might have happened to her if I'd gone to jail."

There is an awkward silence then, as Carol and Andrea remember exactly what _did _end up happening to Sophia, even without Carol killing her father.

"I had two daughters."

The soft words that spill from Michonne cracks like gunshot through the air and they both turn to watch her, concerned at how something so personal about herself being suddenly revealed will affect her. She's held back all this time for a reason, Carol knows, and can only hope they've become so close now that the boundaries are starting to crumble finally. The woman stays strong, stoic and her face betrays little of the turmoil she must experience at the loss of her children. No more words are spoken, though, so Carol steps forward, sheathes her knife at her hip, and hugs her.

No one is going to question it further, so they all move forward, thinking about three little girls and the horrible fate that took them away from the mothers that loved them.

"I only lost my sister and I feel like it shattered my soul," Andrea says finally, painfully, splitting the silence with words that do little to heal or bounce it back to levity. "I don't know how you two can put aside the heartache. God, I tried to kill myself after what happened to Amy. Carol, you didn't even attempt it, though it must have been so much worse for you."

Was she wrong to not try to end it all when Sophia stumbled out of that barn, her eyes milky and dead, her skin pale, her mouth stained with blood?

"I might have," she says slowly, thinking back to that horrible day and feeling darkness steal into her heart. "If Daryl hadn't caught me when I ran to her, held me back, I might have given in and let her take me with her." The thoughts hurt, the loss wounds her again and Carol stubbornly blinks back tears. She tries so hard to not think about that day, to not give space in her head for everything she's lost, trying to celebrate instead the strong women she's found and the one she's trying so hard to be. Most days it's a success, but today… "It hurts, you know. Down deep and it never seems to fade away, but most of the time I can lock it away so that I can function, so that I can be what you two need me to be so that the three of us can make it through this and survive. I have the two of you, and you both have me, and while once I might not have thought that was such a gift, now I do. I will do everything in my power to protect you both, and that's my gift to you and to Sophia, too."

Michonne smiles, her eyes brightened with unshed tears, and with the hand that is not holding the chain of walkers, she clasps hold of Carol's and they walk on, fingers threaded together, taking strength from each step. Her secrets are still wound up deep inside her and Carol wonders if Michonne will ever release them. She doesn't believe that they are kept hidden from a lack of trust—she suspects that Michonne keeps her pain tethered tightly away so that it's never given the chance to weaken her, because weakness in the world they now live would spell disaster for all of them. Carol is smart enough to know this—recognised it even before they fled the farm—but it is only since wandering with these two women at her side that she's really learned how to be strong. Or the kind of strong that could save a life. She'd protected Sophia for years, kept her away from the real horror of Ed, but in the end it didn't do her any good. Her little girl had still run into the woods and been taken by walkers. Carol's solemn vow to these women with her now is that it won't happen again. She'll never be that weak again and she'll never surrender against the hardship she faces, no matter what the outcome will be.

The biting wind around them sinks into her bones, and she pulls her coat closer. She's been fighting a cold the last day or two and every time she coughs they all look out to make sure she's not drawn the attention of walkers. The frequency of her coughing seems to be increasing, turning into irregular fits. She can go hours without making a sound and then suddenly a tickle in her throat will persist for minutes as she croaks through the worst of it, feeling drained once it finally stops.

The air around them now is becoming icy and night is falling faster. Michonne spies a house up ahead and runs forward to check it out, handing her chain over to Carol before she leaves. Carol looks at the metal in her hand and squeezes it tight. There's a story in Michonne's confession earlier, and the little snippets she's dropped over the months. With a heaviness that sinks low in her gut, Carol turns and eyes the feral monsters they drag everywhere with them for safety. Michonne lost two daughters and these men were worse than animals. The picture she's imagining turns her stomach, so she yanks hard on the chain and doesn't feel any guilt when they stumble forward.

* * *

Even at the end of the world, just three girls travelling and surviving together, Carol is still stuck with doing the laundry. She should be mad as spades, but as she watches Michonne frolic in the stream, she giggles instead.

"What's so funny?" Andrea calls out as she does her pass around them, machete in hand, eyes peeled seriously at the woods surrounding them.

"Was just thinking back to that day at the quarry, when we were all doing laundry while Shane and Carl were trying to catch frogs."

"And your fatass husband sat on his rear end and did absolutely nothing?" Andrea hasn't looked at her, but Carol suspects that is on purpose, as her head ducks almost immediately and she can see the apology forming in Andrea's head before the blonde's lips can even move.

"Yep, that was Ed's favourite activity, after all. Expanding his ass while he smoked all the day long." Carol giggles again at the memory, even though a split lip had been at the end of it. Ed can't hurt her anymore, and while it may have been almost a full year coming, she is gladdened by the fact that she not only accepts it, but is confident that no man will ever hurt her again.

"You know, other than seeing him sit and watch us work, or when he sat on the RV pretending to keep watch while he watched all of us work, or he sat around the fire and watched you work, I don't think I ever saw him do anything else."

Carol raises a brow in consternation. "You're the lucky one then, I guess." She's not intending to make Andrea feel guilty, but the result is the same. She smiles even as Andrea drops her guard and her weapon and rushes toward Carol to apologise silently with a hug.

"That fucker is dead now. Best deal for him, I bet." She kisses Carol's temple and Carol laughs, shoving the other woman gently with her shoulder.

"If it weren't gonna be a walker, it would've been me eventually," Carol says, voice strong, reveling in Andrea's gasp of surprised amusement.

"You're admitting pre-meditated murder in front of two ex-lawyers? Girl, when did you grow balls?" Michonne calls out from the middle of the lake, now fully stripped and her stunning, pert breasts glistening in the sunlight, nipples pebbled hard from the frigid temperature of both the water and the air.

"Watcha gonna do? Report me to the police? Not like you didn't know alredy." Carol shakes her head, a wide grin splitting her face. She rinses out the last shirt she's washed and puts it in the pile as Michonne drags her now clean body from the lake, gratefully accepting the towel Andrea hands her before she heads back to take watch.

"Hell, no. Not sure I'd have done that even before the world became so fucked up. Wife beaters deserve a knife to the groin, no matter which world we live in." Michonne roughly dries herself then pulls on a fresh set of clothes, gathering up her dirty ones to replace Carol as washerwoman. "Your turn. Off you go."

Carol stands and does her own striptease before wading out into the water, her skin immediately covered in goosebumps as she starts to shiver uncontrollably.

"Oh God, how did you stand this?" A cough erupts from her throat and she covers her mouth as another follows it. She shouldn't be in the stream when it's so cold, she knows, but the need to feel clean is urgent after over a week since they'd last been safe enough to take advantage of the water. "You must have a hide as tough as a rhino's to not be shivering your ass off."

Michonne shoots her one of those sparsely shared grins, her teeth white against the darkness of her lips, and Carol thinks she's a little bit in love. "Maybe one day I'll let you touch my ass and you can see for yourself."

Carol laughs hysterically, then coughs again before shaking it off and getting down to the point of this excursion into the water. The soap bar is in her hand and she wrestles with it so it doesn't slip her grasp, almost moaning as she feels more clean with every sweep of it across her flesh. She rushes, feeling the congestion that has been building in her head the last few days become even more dense the longer she stays in the cold. With enormous relief, she runs the soap over her entire body, thankful for the smallest of conveniences from their old world as she starts to feel more like herself again.

She feels the rattling in her chest before another round of coughs chokes at her throat leaving her feeling weaker than she has been even in the past two days since she first became afflicted with this cold. Carol hurries from the water, using the same towel Michonne has discarded to rub the moisture from her body and quickly redresses. Black cargo pants in a heavy drill fabric rubs against the goosebumps and instead of feeling warmer, the shivering increases. She can't help but take in Michonne's concerned gaze as the woman discards her scrubbing and goes to her pack, pulling out the bottle of cough mixture they'd found in a pharmacy somewhere along their travels. They have a small stockpile of medical essentials and Carol is immediately grateful for their forethought as now her chest is starting to hurt.

As Michonne prepares the correct dose, Carol dons her bra and squeezes into the scarlet tank top, then adds another over the top and then her coat and boots, and still she can't stave off the chills that wrack her body and make her teeth chatter. Her vision seems to blur as Michonne places the mixture right in her hand, and as a sudden sweat seems to slide over her skin, she throws it back and shudders mildly at the taste of it.

"We need to get somewhere she can rest," Andrea says and Carol nods, feeling suddenly more tired than she has in her life.

"Hmmmm, feel tired," Carol agrees before she ass plants on the ground, her head pulsing with a new thudding rhythm that gradually gets louder and louder the hotter her body starts to feel. There is rapid activity around her and as she pushes through the haze to think about collecting their washing together, she feels strong arms supporting her and she's dragged up until she's standing slumped between them.

"I'm fine," she tries to tell them, but her tongue has gone numb, and with a sick sense of dread, she just tries to move, putting one foot in front of the other until coherent thought seems to twist into itself before disappearing altogether.


	8. Chapter 8

Part Seven

"Christ, boy. Keep the noise down, why don'tcha? We ain't gonna catch a damn thing the way you're tearin' the place up with your boots." Merle eyes the kid, just barely repressing the snarl he wants to aim his way. He hates being sent out to hunt with babysitters. This one was just fucking insulting—a kid, barely wet behind the ears and his clean face still smooth as a baby's behind, sent out to keep tabs on a man approaching his fifties. Merle spits viciously at the ground, stretches out the muscles of his neck and shoulders and takes comfort in the fact that this kid knows fuck all about what he's being used for. With the kid being oblivious, Merle is still able to feel relatively free now that he is outside the walls of Woodbury—and if a walker bites the kid's ass, well, it'd serve Phil right. No one will miss the kid—he seemed to be alone within the town in a similar way to Merle, and the kid is as tight-lipped as he is himself. Merle thinks he might be impressed if he could just dredge up the energy to give a shit.

"Sorry," the kid says, the apology tumbling so swiftly from his lips that Merle suspects he is extra used to saying it, like he is always fucking shit up and on the wrong side of blame.

"What's yer name anyways?"

"Jody."

Merle stops suddenly, swinging back to stare at the kid, his eyes narrowed. "The fuck kind of name is Jody? Did your mamma hate your guts or somethin'? She lose a bet?"

Jody shrugs, his eyes growing distant and his pretty boy good looks slide into one of cold acceptance. "Probably."

There was pain there that Merle is ignoring like his life depends on it. For the good of his own psyche. "Well, you ain't the only kid in the world whose mamma had better things to do than care about the needs of her brats." Merle has already lost interest, his gaze drawing back to the deer tracks he's been following since not long after first light. They are deep in the woods now, and it's dangerous, with biters wandering from out behind trees without a moment of warning. Crisscrossing behind, beside, in front of them in a dizzying display of unnatural coordination. Merle's used to it, anticipates every sudden appearance and dispatches each one with a minimum of fuss. It's like a sixth sense now, an inherent strategy toward self-preservation and he finds he's hardly ever in trouble. The kid doesn't have it, though, and Merle hisses angrily every time a walker gets too close and he's expected to kill it while the kid shuffles around pathetically, trying not to scream out his fear while waving his useless knife around like one of those street gang bitches that don't know fuck about landing the killing shot.

They both see the curl of smoke through the thicket of trees at the same time, Jody's whole attitude switching at the sign of others, a big smile on his face as he goes to rush forward. Merle snags his arm and violently shoves him back behind him, glaring at him. What he really wants to do is kick the kid's teeth in for being so fucking stupid as to go running straight toward people that were more than likely prepared to gut them on sight.

"Fuck," Merle hisses at him, flinging the kid away as he grasps for the gun poking out of the waistband of his pants. "You fixin' to get yourself killed? What do I tell the Gov'ner then? Huh? I should just shoot you right between the eyes right now, save those fuckers the trouble," he says, jerking his head toward the campfire up ahead, hearing the subtle sounds of human inhabitation as Jody shrinks behind him, acknowledgement made with a terse nod, even though the kid is pissed off. Not that Merle cares any.

Soundlessly, Merle stalks forward, stalks these strangers like prey, and only once he's right there, all of them stupidly oblivious of his presence, does he intentionally step on a twig. They jump into action as the snap of it echoes in the space around them, weapons swinging confidently toward him and Merle whistles at their firepower, his hand and stump raised immediately in capitulation. He's already tucked his gun into the back of his pants, hoping for an opening should he need it.

"Hey, don't go gettin' all excited. I ain't plannin' to do any harm to y'all. Just out huntin', tryna teach the boy some survival skills and shit."

They are Latino, and even though it is the end of the world and his own kind are whittled down to just about no one left that he knows, Merle can't control the curl of his lip. He despises Latinos. Doesn't trust them as far as he can kick them.

"Who've you got behind you, amigo?" says the one with a heavy duty rifle that Merle wants to rip from the spic's hands and ram it into his head.

"Merle," the kid hisses behind him and it's all he can do not to jab the little shit's brains out with his knife.

"Shut the fuck up," he orders, his voice a low, menacing growl. He doesn't bother to look back, the kid is on his own now as far as he's concerned. He's so unskilled in survival the little fucker deserves to get eaten.

"Did he say Merle? G, didn't that redneck say his brother's name was Merle? And look, he's missing a hand. That motherfucker threw a hand at me when they held me captive." A younger Latino, equally stupid about keeping his mouth shut, steps forward and unwittingly gives Merle the leader's name.

Merle's eyes narrow with interest, his pulse quickening at the implication that these people have known of Daryl in the past, and as far as he's concerned, it's the thing that decides him to allow them to live.

"You've seen my brother?" He's suspicious when the one called G steps forward, but he breathes more easily when the rifle is lowered, the barrel now pointing at the ground rather than Merle's face.

"He was with the Sheriff that gave us these guns," G confirms and Merle nods, wanting more information, more hope that his brother is still alive.

"Officer Friendly's real generous when he's not handcuffing people to pipes and leavin' 'em to biters on a roof." He's pissed. Whoever the fuck that cop was that came at their group out of nowhere, Merle wants to run his knife into his brain. He has to find Daryl first, though, and this is his first real lead in almost a year.

G steps forward, his hands held up before him to show he's no threat. "They told us some of what went down. They went back for you, amigo, but you'd already cut off your hand." He waves at Merle's stump and the raw, serrated flesh of his wound throbs in memory of that day. "Not long after they left we were invaded, all the old people we were watching out for murdered and all our supplies raided. We barely made it out."

Merle knows this story, and while he can't definitely say Phil is behind any attack on these people, he can't be sure that he isn't. The truth of the Woodbury leader sits heavily in his gut and he blinks before tightening his jaw.

"El bastardo," the younger man with G growls, his tone full of hate and disgust as he spits to the ground. "Called himself the Governor."

"That's enough, Miguel," G commands, and the boy actually listens. Merle wishes his own little puppy follower would take notes.

A gasp slices the air behind him. He stiffens, thinking fast. The kid has heard it all, that the Governor is responsible for killing a bunch of old people, that he's raided another group and stolen supplies in order to make sure Woodbury continues to flourish, but Merle doesn't give a shit that the kid's cherry has been popped to the evil on his doorstep. He couldn't give a flying fuck if the kid runs back and tells the whole damn town what their leader does to other survivors. But…he doesn't want Phil to know he's run into people that knows his brother. He wants to know more, hear more about what Daryl did in those days when Merle left, how he was when he discovered his big brother gone. Jody knows the connection, and Merle needs to decide what he's going to do about it.

G hangs his head and Merle can see the sadness, the guilt that he wasn't able to keep his people safe and Merle hates it, hates seeing that responsibility for others, hates that he doesn't care about anyone but his brother. Hates that he lives in a town ruled by an evil, conniving fucker that is planning to dry up the earth of survivors one old person at a time.

"My brother…Officer Friendly…they tell you where they were plannin' on goin'?"

"Merle!" The kid shouts his name urgently and it stretches his last nerve to breaking point. He whips around to give the little shit a piece of his mind and comes face to face with him fighting off a biter, its tattered form grappling with his arms as the stupid little fuck slashes the air around him instead of burying his knife in the biter's eye. Merle steps forward, his knife zeroing in on one milky eye and spears it straight through, parts of its skull caught on the tip. Merle shoves it off as another comes at him. The moaning that had crept up on them while he was thinking about Daryl reaches a crescendo and everywhere he turns now Merle sees more of them gathering, collecting together and zeroing in on the scent of their life. One harried look around and he can see the Latino group scattering, seizing their own weapons and packs as more biters materialise from the other direction. The camp is scrambling, panicked and Merle growls in frustration, spearing another walker skank as she stumbles into him from behind. He thanks whoever is looking out for him that she fell before setting her jaws into him as he stomps his boot down hard on her face.

Jody is almost crawling up his ass when he turns back around, the kid trembling with fear as he holds a smaller knife, continuing to slash the air in front of him as more walkers advance. The Latinos are cutting and running and Merle knows what he has to do. His only chance to get away as more biters converge on his location is to give them something to feed on, something to divert their hunger from the tasty morsel he is. He considers for only a second how he'll explain his singular return to Phil, but he has confidence in his ability to bullshit. Phil hasn't caught onto him yet. The only thing he gives a shit about is surviving. Just hearing that his brother had come for him, risked returning to Atlanta to drag his ass off that roof gives Merle more hope than he's had in months. Daryl may well be dead by now, but Merle doesn't think so, however he knows he is about to be if he doesn't move his ass out of these woods fast.

The Latino group is almost out of sight when he does it. Grabbing Jody by the back of his shirt, he holds the kid in front of him as he retreats. Suddenly the kid's own sense of self-preservation kicks in as he realises what Merle is up to and tries to fight it. Even with only one hand to secure him, Merle is stronger. He's more calm, more focused, more deadly, and, as nearly twenty biters close in, he stabs his knife through the kid's back, the tip of it jabbing through flesh and his heart, protruding glistening and bloody out the kid's front. Jody weakly turns back to face him, stares at him in shock as a thin trail of blood dribbles out from between his lips, his mouth moving but incapable of emitting sound. Merle isn't looking at him, though—he's staring at the hungry eyes that are now focused on the boy, frantic arms reaching forward to snag hold of his flesh. Merle lets him go, shoves the kid hard, screaming silently, into the groaning, famished mass of walkers. He turns his back on the frenzy, remorse dismissed as he bursts into movement and runs.

AN… Just trying to round Merle out. Hmmm, I'm thinking this is going to make it difficult for Carol to cross over to his side. What do you think?

Also, just want to say, this fic may not have a huge number of readers, but those of you who review are simply the best reviewers in the fandom. You all rock and make me love writing this even more. I didn't think it was possible!


	9. Chapter 9

Part Eight

Carol awakes from a heavy, drug-induced sleep knowing something is wrong. Eyes still closed, she hears the alarming sound of painful grunts, panicked screams and the sound of fists impacting against flesh.

She forces her lids up and even though her vision is blurred, and her throat catches painfully in her chest, Carol is forced brutally into an awareness of their predicament and it makes her even more sick than she already is. Sick with fear, sick with anger, sick and so full of bile and acid that she is determined to use it to destroy the sons of bitches that think they can just come and take whatever they want from them.

She senses the danger immediately, barely seeing it with her own two eyes but the fear this situation offsets seems to be one she's terrifyingly familiar with. Three men have invaded the shack they've found shelter in, so far ignoring Carol as she slept in the back corner. Michonne and Andrea are fighting like cats to keep them away, hissing and snarling and using every weapon in their arsenal, but it isn't enough and Carol swims out of her feverish haze to see that they are in very great trouble unless she can get out of bed and _do_ something. She's never been the one to take action before, but these long months she has spent with Michonne and Andrea have taught her absolutely nothing if not that she has the ability, the drive, the sheer guts to do what needs to be done to stay alive. It is this force that gives her the strength to sit up, frantically trying to push her frail body into doing what she needs it to do.

Michonne doesn't have her sword and Carol knows that if the woman could reach it, these men would be gutted already on the floor, their insides painting a gratifying picture on the boards. Her strong face is bruised, blood spewing from a broken lip and a hopefully not broken nose, and while Carol forces herself to her feet, she sees that Andrea is almost done in, her clothes being torn from her body as the sick fucks laugh in her face, their filthy hands grasping handfuls of her and it just feeds Carol's rage. This. This is what Daryl had beaten Randall for, why he'd bloodied his hands, what he'd wanted them protected from, and as thoughts of her once scornful reaction to his methods run through her head, Carol surges to her feet, wobbling precariously.

"Come on, sugar," says the biggest one, and to Carol he is slightly out of focus until he rips Andrea's shirt right down the middle, and her blonde friend bucks up and screams in fury. "You're just a good for nothin' whore. Shut that pretty mouth before I plug it with my dick." They laugh, leering and drooling over every inch of Andrea's bared flesh and it stirs further the need to end it, as violently as she can.

There's another one holding Andrea's arms and his back is to Carol, and as she stumbles away from the bed, her body so weak she almost collapses on the floor, she painfully makes her way over to the scabbard, drawing out the sword in one graceful arc. Carol is so filled with fury that everything is red. Molten, swirling, many shades of red. Her vision hazes out completely and, dredging up strength she hasn't felt in days, she lifts the sword and with devastating intent, swings it fast in an arc that detaches the man's head and catapults it across the room to bounce across the floor. Carol blinks in shock, but already she's focused on the hard cock jutting out from the other one trying to force Andrea's knees apart. Andrea is sobbing, soaked in blood and gagging against the headless man that has landed on her. With both bodies down on the floor, Carol releases a guttural cry as she charges, katana outstretched. She skewers the pantless man and keeps running, the sword sinking straight through his flesh to the hilt. It sits against his stomach and Carol screams as his hands grasp at her arms, his fingers pinching into her flesh hard enough to leave bruises. Her knee comes up hard, slamming his balls straight up into his body. Her momentum slams to a stop as the tip of the blade lodges into a wall, but still feeling powerful from adrenaline, she yanks it forward a little and rips it up several inches through his flesh into his chest, before pulling it out and letting him slump, dying to the floor.

She knows there is one more, but there is blood everywhere, her bare feet slipping in it as it pools all over the floor, the heavy metallic scent of it overpowering and, as she leans forward to vomit, feeling drained and faint, the last man standing slams into her side and tackles her to the ground, the sword torn from her hands. Carol falls back, head slamming into the hard floor, her fevered flesh catching up with her shock and she's shivering, focusing badly on this animal that is raising the sword against her, high above his head. An explosion across the room shatters Carol's hearing and everything happens in slow motion—blood spattering across her face and chest, the sword falling, its blade about to slice into her as Andrea grabs her arms and drags her out of the way. She's keening brokenly, voice shredding a raw throat as she tries to make sense of it all. Tries to put distance between the enormity of what has just happened, backing into Andrea's embrace like a child. The man falls to his knees and Carol sees the blackened hole that enters his forehead, shards of his skull split wide enough for brain matter to be visible through the blood and bone, and then he tips forward and falls across her body hard. There is no stopping her now. One final look and shove and Carol collapses, vomiting, on the floor, Andrea not once letting her go.

The cabin echoes with their heavy, panting breaths, each of them lost in a horror replay of what has just transpired. Carol feels consciousness start to waver but clings to the ache of Andrea's hands as they dig into her body above her breasts where she's been dragged away from being split in half by Michonne's falling sword. Where they have dug in harder as she relieves the pressure in her gut all over the floor. When Michonne reaches them, all her adrenaline has seeped away and Carol needs their help to stand, to draw away from the mess left of their cabin.

"We need to clean up the blood," she says as she swipes the blood from her face and flicks it at one of their attackers. "Get changed, and then we move." She's strong, and even though her image is starting to swim out of focus, Carol nods her approval. They need to get out of here, and fast. The screams, the blood, the gun fire will draw walkers and they need to be gone before the crowd arrives.

"Carol can barely stand," Andrea says desperately, so Carol tries harder, desperation welling in her chest to not be the weak link—to not be the one they have to leave behind to survive, or the one that brings them down.

"Maybe…maybe you should go and leave me." The words are slurred, and Carol's eyes are dropping shut even as she can feel a wet cloth swishing over her face, then her body and her clothing being tugged from her and being redressed like she's little more than someone's barbie doll.

"Not a chance," Michonne hisses in her ear, but Carol passes out before the last word even registers.

* * *

Slowly, Carol registers that her feet are dragging along the ground, her boots stubbornly catching on tree roots and sticks, making all three women stumble. It feels like ages of listening to the girls huff and puff, groaning against her dead weight, but no matter how much focus Carol puts into making her limbs work, she can't force anything to move. They are exhausted from their ordeal earlier and from trying to support her as they flee to safety, but every time she is jostled awkwardly, a series of hacking coughs burst from her throat and her chest feels like it's flooding with liquid. She's drenched, swimming in her own sweat, and Carol cries out miserably, barely aware anymore of where she is or what is happening around her.

The next time she opens her eyes she's lying on the forest floor, two blankets wrapped protectively around her but still she shivers so violently she worries her bones will snap in two. There is a small fire nearby and her blinking eyes gradually open to find Andrea standing and scanning around them, keeping watch so that they aren't taken unawares again. Michonne is crouched down beside her, using a damp cloth to rest against Carol's forehead and the coolness of it is such a relief that she can't stop herself bursting into tears.

"When I was a child," says Michonne, and immediately Carol is captivated by the deep, lulling nature of her voice. "I wanted to be a ballerina. I wanted to make people feel passion for whatever story I was bringing to life through dance. Every weekend my mother would take me to class, and I'd practise so hard, and I was good. Really good. I got the lead five years in a row, and then, when I was sixteen, just about to take up a scholarship, it all came to an end. I broke my foot and there were…complications. I took up martial arts, studied hard to get into law and did the usual thing, until the dead started to reanimate and try to kill us all."

"Can…totally see you…in a…pink tutu," Carol gasps around the pressure in her chest, tears sliding down her face. She feels the tracks as they burn, cool moisture against the scorching heat of her cheeks.

"Oh girl, I looked fine." Michonne wiped more sweat from her brow, and Carol moans at the sweet agony of it. It's hard to tell but she thinks it must be about midday, the air cool enough to take some of the sting out of how hot her body feels, but just barely. She furrows a brow in confusion when she senses Michonne shivering beside her, her friend's hands g slightly less warm than the flesh it rests against.

"She's burning up." She hears Andrea, her tone soft and worried and Carol scoffs, her eyelids heavy and her entire body bottomed out from exhaustion. It took effort to sweat buckets like she was.

"Pffft. Just…a cold." Carol fights so hard to stay awake, she doesn't want them giving up on her when she hasn't yet. She knows they won't leave her, and for a split second she wonders if her condition is actually serious. People didn't usually die of a cold, though that was before when doctors weren't hard to find and the good drugs just as easy. A coughing fit pounces on her and it's the most animated her body has been since she collapsed in her makeshift bed of leaves. Her whole body hurts—ever muscle, every limb, her head, her eyes. Even her fingers. It all aches in a way that makes her think it's here to stay and for the first time, Carol is worried. She's dead weight, dying if she can trust the fear in her friend's voices as they try to distract her from how serious their situation is, but then she remembers back to earlier—was it today or yesterday?—when she's still been defending them, saving them all from the evils that men will commit because they think women are weak. It's hard to believe she has defended them so loyally when she might be one step away from death.

"You should…leave me." The words need to be pushed past lips that are fighting her to cooperate.

"Don't be stupid," Michonne whispers brokenly, grasping Carol's hand and squeezing it tight. "You just rest. Andrea and I have this."

Have what, Carol wonders as a bottle of water seems to scrape against her lips and her jaw drops open, water running into her mouth and down her throat as she wills herself to swallow, whimpering at the relief of it. The water is withdrawn and then Michonne places a pill on her tongue, tipping the water back up and Carol swallows it down. It's all she can manage, her head falling back to the pillow of leaves as darkness once again descends.

* * *

The next time she wakes she is huddled behind some bushes, Michonne looking around them wildly with her sword held aloft. The pets have been chained behind them to a tree—Carol can hear them rattling against their bonds, seemingly worked up about something. She can't see much, just shapes that swirl and converge, but her ears are still working just fine. There's a walker in front of them and by the sounds of it, it's feeding on something. Most likely on a someone. Michonne puts her finger to her lips, warning Carol to be quiet, and then she's creeping up behind the walker and striking it down. Carol wearily pushes to her feet, idly wondering if she's been on her feet at all during this trek through the woods or if Andrea and Michonne have dragged her ass through it all.

"It was eating a deer," Michonne tells them as she returns, donning her backpack, releasing her pets and then putting her free arm around Carol as support.

"You know, you're actin' pretty fresh," Carol mumbles as the two girls dig their arms into her sides. Every inch of her skin is sensitive and she feels so much pain now that she might as well explode.

"It's because you've got great tits," Michonne confides and then they all laugh, even Carol though it comes out on a gasp.

"A good bra…is essential." She coughs, the noise cracking through the air like a gunshot.

"Remind me to call into Victoria's Secret on the way home," Andrea kids, squeezing Carol's middle.

It isn't like they hear anything, but suddenly the air around them is arrested with some kind of danger—the silence itself a warning. They pause, not sure what to make of it and Carol is more confused than ever.

"Is it…a…herd?" Her voice is raspy, pathetic as she tries to keep as quiet as she can, but if it's a herd they will have to leave her or they will all die. She can't allow that. "Get out. Just…leave me." She implores them to listen, but Michonne hushes her, and just as they are on high alert, every nerve in her body ready to jump at the slightest shock in the air, he's there, rearing up out of nowhere, larger than life with a huge grin splitting his face. Carol isn't sure whether to laugh, or cry, or run screaming into the woods.

"Well holy shit. Looky what I have here."

There's a nasty knife attached to his stump and it seems so horrific to see a man who she'd last seen completely whole, reduced to this. Eyes wide, she briefly wonders how relieved Daryl will be to know his brother has survived after all before wondering if he's someone they will welcome or need to kill like those other men from before. There is a sudden stab at her heart with that fear, and she wavers on her feet, her sight becoming blurred again though she's clinging to his image as long as she can. No way will Daryl's brother hurt them. She refuses to believe it. She can't.

"Merle," she whispers, holding out her hand and a real smile gracing her lips. And then her eyes roll back and she faints dead away.

AN~ Seriously, this fic has the most amazing reviewers. I love you all for being so thoughtful, and making me think of things I hadn't even contemplated. I am so grateful for you taking the effort to review.


	10. Chapter 10

AN…My sincerest apologies for how long this one took to get out. Most of it has been written since last week, but my other hobby/job very much got in the way this week and I've had to do some crazy knitting to catch up on some tests I am doing. Please don't hold back on letting me know what you think. You guys are the best reviewers of the fandom, I kid you not!

Part Nine

They're gone.

He's been running for fucking miles, ducking through trees every time he sees another biter rearing up ahead, and in doing so, he's lost them. The first word about his brother and he's let them slip through his fingers like grains of useless fucking sand.

His chest heaving for breath, Merle collapses to his knees and squeezes his eyes shut. He can clearly see the skinny bastards as they mention Daryl, speak to him like he's a friend and want him to know that his brother came looking for him. If only he'd stayed on that roof… No, if he'd have stayed he'd be dead, plain and simple. There'd been no telling how strong that chain on the door was, how long it would have held the hungry pricks back. He'd been stranded, no back up, and he'd had to make a choice. As his wrist suddenly burns from the memory of being hacked into with that shitty saw and separated from his hand, Merle chokes down a sob. Fuck, none of it is right, what this world is turning them all into. The decisions they are forced to make just to survive.

For the first time in an hour he lets himself think back to the Latino's camp, back to the look on Jody's face as Merle sacrificed him so he could get away. How cold he'd felt inside as he made that choice and then ran after the only other people he'd met in this fucked up new world who had laid eyes on his brother, and now it's all gone and the only thing that seems at all safe now is his own useless ass.

There's nothing he can do but head back to Woodbury. There's no point trying to go back and track the group—if he does that he's just going to end up head on with the herd again, and that's the last thing he needs right now. He doesn't need to see that boy torn to shreds, or worse, shuffling along with the others, his eyes dead and his mutilated body decomposing as he rushes at Merle, forcing him to kill the boy twice.

The woods around him now are mostly quiet except for his own harsh, indrawn breaths as he struggles to forcefully banish the roaring in his head, the fire in his muscles from running a fucking marathon when he's damn near past fifty years old. He's getting too old for this shit, and even though he is fit and smart and ready to take the world on head first, he wouldn't say no to a bottle of water and a nice, warm bed to have a bit of a break. Pity the kid had been carrying their pack, freeing Merle up to do the actual hunting. Pity the kid had come at all, he thinks now, even though Merle knows he'd likely be dead with how distracted he'd been by the talk of Daryl without the kid there watching his back.

Merle shakes his head hard and gives in to the build up of emotion in his chest, a low, guttural growling noise that sounds half way to a scream of remorse before he clamps it down and gasps desperately again for breath—for calm. It's there in the background, fighting to re-enter him after his breakdown. He's so angry that he's blistering with it. This shit isn't right. He knows that. It's not how he is, this blubbering, emotional mess that can't keep himself in check. He launches himself to his feet so suddenly that he almost trips over again, but before he falls into the dirt he takes off stumbling into a run, slamming his shoulder into a tree, coaxing his body and mind back to the here and now with a little dose of pain. It's enough, and as he stands back with his body throbbing from the impact, he can feel the calm start to filter back in like an apparition. He takes his one good hand and rubs it across his face until he's wiped away all the tears he hadn't known he'd shed. Merle slumps back against the tree trunk, just listening to his own breaths as they steady, and then finally, he's ready. For what he has no clue, but in this place, in this time, there always seems to be something he has to be ready for. He's certain it won't take long to find him.

He's not sure what it is that brings his head up to scan his surroundings. He can't hear any tell-tale groans, or the shuffling of walker feet as they stumble through the woods like the brainless fuckers they are. He can't smell their rotting stench that's impossible to miss, even from twenty paces away. But there's something, or maybe it's the something inside of nothing that he's not used to in these woods, that makes him nervous. Merle investigates quietly, his steps sure and confident as he makes his way soundlessly in search of whatever it is that is making him feel uncomfortable.

When he sees them, he's forced to blink and double check the vision. Shock doesn't even begin to cover how he feels. They are a sight to behold for sure: a black, Nubian Queen with walkers chained to a tree, their jaws and arms missing as they watch what is going on. The other two he remembers from the Atlanta group. The black one takes out a biter with her sword and Merle feels his pants tighten. He's impressed—as well as pissed off once he sees what the walker had been feeding on, that another deer is lost to that filth that are so close to forcing human extinction. Blondie's holding up the other one and she looks sick. Real sick. He remembers her, a mean asshole of a husband and a little girl. He sees nothing but three women looking more than a little rough, dried blood adhered to hair and flesh, though he has to look hard to find it. They all appear exhausted, but the sick one looks nearly ready to give up her fight for life. That doesn't sit right, not with how he remembers her struggle just to get along each day with her fat ass dick of a husband staring on with an evil eye and a heavy fist. It shits him that he remembers so much about her. He's always had an eye for a face, especially a pretty one, and violent assholes are always on his radar.

It's obviously his lucky day. These people will know even more what's happened to his brother, and it is this that decides him to step forward, despite his healthy fear of the black bitch's sword. They don't notice him straight away, but he hears her, the fear in her voice as she contemplates a herd coming down on them, as she tries to sacrifice herself for the sake of the others. It surprises him, that this quiet, mousy woman who once would never have said boo would put herself on the line to save these other two women, and right then and there he decides he's going to take them back to Woodbury, even though he suspects it's the very last place they should be. Hell, it's the last place _he _should be, but aren't all their options limited these days?

"Well, holy shit," he drawls, happy despite himself. "Looky what we have here."

Blackie and Barbie spin sharply at his voice, recognition spreading over Andrea's face and fury across the dark one. But on the other one, the sick one—Carol, he suddenly remembers—a strange look overcomes her face and he stands transfixed as she utters his name like a prayer, like a goddam gift that he's appeared before them, stretching out her tiny, shaking hand to him with her lips smiling like he's the most wonderful thing she's ever seen. Other than Daryl, he's never really known anyone to be pleased with his presence, so the sheer surprise of her welcome strikes him as hard as a kick to the balls. He can already feel his face relaxing, his sarcastic smirk softening as this new feeling unfurls inside, pushing out all the other bullshit he's endured so far that day.

He's just about to reach out his hand to clasp hers when her offering slips, starting to fall. His first response is anger, thinking it's a joke and that she's making fun of him, but then he sees her body is falling also and without thinking, he pushes the other two aside and catches her before she hits the ground.

"Put her down."

The tip of the sword is at his throat, his own knife completely useless as he cradles Carol in his arms and he's pissed at himself for being so stupid. He's no knight in shining armour, no superman come to carry the damsel away to safety, and he's screwed if the black bitch wants to spear his butt to a tree.

"I ain't no threat to you while I'm holdin' her," he says, eyes narrowed, vaguely wiggling his knife hand that is completely useless to him now. Holding her gives him some leverage, however, so he tries not to think too hard about how it feels to hold her in his arms, tries not to care at how laboured her breathing is, how she feels light as a feather and how her colour's not looking so good.

Andrea places a hand on her friend's arm, encouraging her to lower the weapon and Merle finally realises he's been holding his breath, nodding sharply at Blondie in gratitude.

"How long's she been like this?" His attention is arrested, though, as he feels Carol's body shuddering in his arms before a hoarse cough erupts from deep in her chest, and then her eyes open and she's staring straight up at him. She seems dazed, disbelieving and then he's the one whose dubious she's still all right in the head as she places a hand against his cheek and relaxes it into the curves of his face.

"Daryl's gonna be so relieved. I knew that Cherokee rose didn't just bloom for Sophia." Her hand moves fast back to her mouth as she barks out another series of violent coughs that make it difficult for Merle to hold on to her. When she's done, she lies limp in his embrace, scaring the shit out of him. Her face appears waxy and pale and he understands clearly that she needs to see a doctor right the fuck now.

Without a glance at the others, he turns on his heel and starts walking out of the woods toward Woodbury. About ten steps away he is yet to hear their footsteps following him and he turns around fast, growling angrily.

"You two comin' or not? She needs a doctor an' I can get her to one, now let's haul ass."

They start following him once he's almost out of sight, the two of them hurrying to catch up and the black one dragging along her pets behind them. He thinks that might be a good thing, might be something new that Phil has never seen before and it will give them an in to the town that they otherwise might not have had—not that he thinks Phil will knock back three women at the gate when all the men on watch can see them coming, and see they are all lookers. He's going to question Merle hard about bringing them in, though, and he cringes as that conversation starts to play out in his head. He's going to have to admit that two of them know his brother, and then the suspicion Phil was just starting to relax around him will spike all over again.

Fuck, he's tired. He's tired of being careful, of towing the line, of keeping his head clear when all he wants to do is to snort a line and maybe drift off into a corner somewhere and find sweet oblivion. Maybe then he'll see Daryl and actually get to say howdy before the apparition fades and leaves him living in this shit again. There's no drugs in Woodbury. He's looked. And even if he did manage to find some and succumb to the intoxicating lure of getting high, he knows Phil will have his head. Literally. He can't ever relax around that fucker, knowing that just one wrong move could set their leader on a course toward Merle's destruction that he just doesn't want to instigate. He's only ever been scared of one man in his life before and Merle swore to himself when he'd turned his back on his home, leaving that asshole alive, that he's never going to be afraid again. Phil worries him, but Merle isn't scared of shit anymore, not even death, and that thought goads him into a laugh. Oh how he lies to himself. He's still scared of dying, or he'd never have cut off his own fucking hand to get away from a bunch of geeks straining at a locked door.

They've almost reached the town when he stops, turning back to the women, shuffling Carol in his arms a little as the weight of her strains at his shoulders.

"You seen my brother?" He asks the blonde, and prepares himself for the ultimate blow.

"Not for a long time," she admits, but then she's reaching out and laying her hand on his arm. He starts walking again, letting her talk while wondering about her touch. "About seven months ago we got run off a farm. Carol and I got separated from the others, but I'm sure, if anyone else made it out, it would've been Daryl. He's survived a lot."

Merle's eyes narrow at that. There's no way anyone knows about how he and Daryl raised themselves up—if he's confident about anything it's that Daryl doesn't reveal shit to no one, but especially not to a bunch of dogooders at the ass end of the world.

"Like what?"

Andrea's eyes soften as her gaze lands on Carol and Merle dreads whatever she's about to say, knowing that he's not going to like it. Her expression wavers between sadness and sympathy and it makes him nervous.

"We lost people. A lot of people. They went back for you, you know, to Atlanta. You were already gone. Daryl tried to find you but they eventually had to come back and when they did, we were already fighting. We lost so many: Jim, Jacqui, Ed…Amy."

His head shoots up, looking at Carol and putting the name of her dickweed of a husband back in place. Ed. So the useless son of a bitch got bit. Good, he thinks, and grins. Then the other names filter through, Jacqui—another dark bitch, though she'd been nice, kind of. She didn't put up with his shit, and if he hadn't been high as a kite, he might have liked her. He remembered Jim, tinkering with that old guy…Dale?...with the RV, and Amy…

"Your sister?" He remembers her, a pretty younger version of Andrea and he can't help the remorse that surges forth. "Sorry. She was a good kid."

Andrea nods, blinking back her tears and when she continues, her voice is low, defeated as she fights against the emotions of so much loss. "We got stuck on an Interstate when a herd blew through. We mostly hid until they moved past, but somehow Sophia…. A couple of walkers chased her into the woods. Daryl searched for a week." She looks at him, smiling, proud and Merle nods. He knows how Daryl is with kids—that he'd never let one stay lost in the woods if there's any choice about it. "He didn't find her then, but that whole time he kept giving Carol hope, and I guess they got close. When Sophia _was _found…" Her voice cracks and Merle slows his pace, not wanting her to stop, even if he's hearing shit that makes his heart ache. "Rick had to put her down. Daryl didn't take it so well, tried to distance himself from the group, but Carol brought him back. I guess they must have talked a bit about you."

The easy affection she seems to hold while talking to him makes him uncomfortable. He should be relieved to hear that his brother is alive, that he's doing what he can to survive, but it feeds Merle's insecurities. He wants to find his brother, but what if Daryl doesn't want to find him? What if little bro has moved on and Merle is stuck living in this shitty town led by a psycho? What if he has to kill for the rest of his life, do someone else's dirty work while his soul burns and quavers until there's nothing of him left? Until he turns just as cold and filled with evil as the man at the top?

The woman in his arms moves, moans, gasps painfully and wiggles her ass against his forearm. When she's done, her hand is raised and resting against his chest. Merle shudders at the touch and wishes he could kick his own ass. All these long months he's pushed Ava away for blatantly throwing herself at him, hated her for expecting him to protect her, and without even asking this little filly has him running to catch her, has him almost crawling to carry her back to a doctor in Woodbury, and now has his heart hammering inside his chest because she's managed to place her dainty hand on him while she's unconscious.

He feels sad all the sudden. Feels a wash of hopelessness overcome him. All he wants is his family—Daryl—and all he's getting are bits of the world that might have brushed up against his brother for a short period of time. By the sounds of it, though, Carol has brushed up against him the most. Merle knows there's going to be limits on what they shared—Daryl doesn't let anyone in, not unless they push hard, and over the last forty years, the only one to even try to push was Merle.

"When we get to Woodbury," he says, stopping again once he's reached the end of the trees before they hit the road, "you'll need to hand over your weapons." He's looking hard at Blackie and her sword, knowing that she'll be shot on sight if she doesn't give it up. He's wondering how much warning he should give them, how much truth of where they are going he should share, but he suspects the dark bitch won't step foot in the place if she knows how evil it is, and he has to get Carol to their doctor. He has to, whether he wants to or not.

"No."

"You listen to me, my Nubian Queen—" he rasps out, suddenly livid at her attitude. He's trying to _help _them, for Christ's sake. Don't they want this woman to live? How much? Fuck, how much does he tell?

"My _name_," she informs him through gritted teeth and eyes that nearly glow against her dark skin, "is Michonne, and I will _not _give up my katana."

He thrusts Carol's form in front of her face, makes her look at her friend and in that instant Merle can see that this bitch cares—all three of them care about each other in a way he's never seen before and he eyes them all, awed.

"She ain't gonna make it."

Andrea and Michonne snap angry eyes on him like a whip, and that bitch has drawn her fucking sword against him again. He's so done with this shit, done with pussy-footing around people's feelings, people's ignorance.

"Why did you bring us here if you think she's going to die?"

He represses a growl in his throat, knowing that if he wasn't holding Carol he might well have punched _Michonne _in the face by now. "I don't _want _her to fucking die, you dumb bitch. I need to get her to this doctor but the Governor ain't gonna be lettin' any one of you inside if you don't surrender your weapons. I'll make sure you get them back, but for now, this is what we gotta do."

Carol works herself up into another round of body-racking coughs and she's curled into his chest, her hand fisting into his shirt as she grimly hangs on to what little she can find.

Michonne nods her head at him, agreeing about the sword, and he doesn't wait any longer, moving into a laboured trot as he tries to get them to Woodbury faster. She hands her sword over as soon as they reach the gate, Martinez jumping down and draws it open so they can pass through. Andrea hands over her gun and then they follow him as he heads to the hospital building, eyes wide in surprise at the state of the town. At its goddamn existence when they've been so used to living out in the open.

It isn't until he's carefully positioned Carol on a bed in their makeshift clinic, watching the doctor rush about connecting IV lines and examining her vital signs, watching the Governor appear and stand over him with a strange expression on his face, that Merle remembers Jody.

Fuck.


	11. Chapter 11

AN: Apparently I need to go out and buy a Skylander's Giant for one of my obsessed kids, and as I've been struggling with this, I thought I would post it and hope it makes me feel better I will reply to reviews when I get home, because let's face it, you guys make me smile and give me more confidence in this fic than anything else.

Part Ten

"_Keep your eyes in your fuckin' head, you whore." The imprint of Ed's palm stings her cheek, and yet it's nothing as his fist just glances off her right eye. He's drunk, and mad, and Carol wonders why she's still afraid when it's such a common thing for him to take out his frustrations on her. She's not really, not for herself anyway. It's fear for Sophia and what he might choose to do to her once he gets sick of how used to his abuse Carol's body is._

_His hand fists the front of her shirt and he yanks her to her feet before landing a punch into the softness of her stomach and she's back on her knees, gasping for breath and trying desperately to hold back the tears. It's an act of defiance that she wishes she could kick her own ass for, because she's learned so thoroughly by now that Ed only ever stops once he sees her tears. Breaking her is what the end goal has always been, and every time the water flows, he knows he's won and she'll go to bed whimpering like a shattered baby. It makes him feel big, bad, but Carol knows he's those things without shedding a single drop. Now that they are surrounded by all these…people…she refuses to allow herself to be so pathetic. She refuses to let anyone else see how much he hurts her, and how weak she is to allow it. _

_She's barely conscious when he suddenly stops, every move jarring her into searing, splintering pain. There's a loud groan and it sounds so much like Ed that Carol tries harder to see what is happening, but all she makes out through blurred vision is the bulk of a man bending over who she assumes is Ed as he kicks her husband in the balls. Then her tears flow and she's trying to hold in a giggle. At least he's not going to try and do anything else to her tonight. _

_She startles when someone picks her up, carrying her slowly, gently, back to her tent. Whoever it is tucks her in, puts a cold, wet cloth against her eye and pats her good cheek softly._

_His knee cracks as he stands up away from her and she hears the flap of the tent swishing against the fabric as he holds it open._

"_You want me to put a bullet between that sack of shit's eyes, you just say the word, darlin'. 'An keep that little girl away from 'im. He's lookin' at her like no daddy should."_

_The news passed through her with a shudder of revulsion, forcing her to open her eyes and acknowledge the truth._

"_I know," she gasps out, hating herself even more because she'd thought she was dealing with it, keeping Sophia away from him, taking his fists and his dick and anything else he wants to throw at her to keep him away from her baby. "I don't know what to do."_

_He drops the flap and crouches beside her, giving her a perfect view of cargo pants and heavy, worn boots. She tries to look up, tries to calm the thumping in her head that shades his voice a little too much for her to work out who it is._

"_Protect her till I get back from Atlanta. When I get back, the fucker'll be nothin' more than history."_

_His thumb rubs against her bottom lip and she sucks in a gasp, not sure how she feels about someone touching her, even though that thumb leaves a tingling sensation in the pit of her stomach._

"_I will," she says against his thumb, raising her hand with muscles that seem to be consumed with agony. Her fingers settle softly around his wrist and encounter a leather band. She frowns, the message so unclear and her lids falling heavily across her eyes before she can force anything to make any sense. It doesn't really matter. She's not going to push away the first person who has done anything to protect her in twenty years. "Thank you."_

* * *

"Merle."

Carol wakes up fast, the memory from the quarry camp so sharp and fresh in her head that she winces and flinches in panic. It takes a minute or two to realise that Ed is dead, and that her mystery saviour that night had been Merle. She feels stupid for not realising it at the time, though to be fair she had suffered a beating at the hands of her husband and her brain was used to shutting down to protect herself. Ed's death had been final so soon after Merle's promise that she'd not even had the time to think back then on why whoever had saved her hadn't delivered, but obviously now she knows it's because he never came back. No, he wasn't _brought _back, left on that roof because he'd behaved so contradictory to the way he'd treated her that night. Her stomach is tied up in knots now just thinking about it, and feeling ashamed that she'd allowed that man to take care of her and she'd not once cared about his welfare once he'd gone. And now, again, her last memory is of Merle cradling her in his arms as he carried her to safety.

At least, she assumes she's somewhere safe.

There is a quiet rustling at her side and even though her whole body aches, Carol turns toward it, breaking through her lack of energy to smile at Michonne as her friend sits in a chair nodding off and listing to the side against the bed. Something touches her foot, then, and when she looks up, Merle is looking at her with his finger across his lips, warning her to be quiet. She smiles at him, too, because she just can't help it. She reaches out her hand to him, surprised when he takes it. Lifting it to her lips, she bestows a quick kiss to his knuckles, lacing their fingers together as her lids grow heavy once again. She mouths 'thank you' to him, hoping he understands she means it for what he'd done for her before as well as for now, and before anyone can say or do anything else, she's asleep again.

* * *

It's the anger that wakes her the next time, and the bone jarring chill in the air. Carol sucks in a deep breath, wincing at how it is a squeezing pain in her chest before she lets it go. As soon as her breath dissipates in the air, the voices stop and she can feel their eyes on her, digging under her skin to see what secrets she's hiding and she's immediately on edge. She doesn't know who holds the anger, but it's there, humming under the air and infiltrating her head. She's sensitive to anger, having lived with it daily for the last twenty years of her life, and this one that circles around her makes her just as jumpy as Ed always did.

Her first sight of him is a shock. No matter that she's in a bright room, fully functional, sunshine belting in the windows and splashing across her figure as she lounges around in her bed, she's not expected to see other _people. _Only Merle, and now that she can't see him, knows without even looking that he's not even in the room, she falls hard into panic.

There is something about him that makes her skin crawl. He approaches her bed casually, over confident and right away she knows he's the leader of this place. The one she should be grateful to for bringing her back—if she's back. There is an IV in her vein, giving her fluids and antibiotics, she assumes, because despite the pain and the way she just feels god awful, she knows that there is _something _working hard inside to heal her.

"It's good to see you're back with us," he says, holding his hand out and if there is one thing Carol knows it's that she doesn't want to touch him. There is an undercurrent of something very dark here, despite his easy-going grin, his rugged good looks, his apparent friendliness. Carol smiles carefully, barely able to lift her hand up to shake his, thinking back to when she woke before and it was Merle who she'd held on to, and even through all the rumours and judgements her former group had expounded about him, she still felt a whole lot more comfortable with her hand clasped in his than she does this new man. "How are you feelin'?"

She sees concern in his eyes, but the expression of it falls on her like an engorged storm cloud. The sensation that she's suffocating is suddenly overwhelming and she coughs, snatching her hand back from him so she can cover her mouth as her body vibrates with the aftershocks.

"Like someone body slammed me while I was knockin' on Heaven's door."

He chuckles and Carol notices straight away that his interest in her perks up his earlier dutiful behaviour. An icy prick of foreboding trickles its way up her spine and Carol shudders.

"You're a Dylan fan?" He sits on her bed, his hip brushing against hers as his hand settles a little too high up on her thigh.

"My mother," she admits huskily, feeling sick that she's given him some kind of opening she doesn't understand and that her voice makes her sound almost sexy despite her throat being raw from constant coughing. "She played it almost every minute of my life when I lived at home." She emphasises her condition with another burst of hacking coughs, taking a bit of pleasure as he seems to jump off the bed away from her.

"Carol is more of a pop fan, though, aren't you?" Michonne pushes her way between them and Carol sinks back into the bed's softness, relieved. Her friend grasps her hand and squeezes tight.

"Absolutely," Carol says, thinking fast. "Michael Jackson, Billy Idol. Nearly gave my mom a heart attack."

She actually prefers it when his eyes narrow and he takes a step back, reassessing her and finding her not quite what he'd first assumed. Michonne is almost crushing her hand, her dark eyes unwavering as she stares at this man. He in turn watches them both carefully and it turns into an uneasy silence that Carol senses might never be broken until Andrea steps up, putting a comforting arm around Carol's shoulders.

"Carol, this is the Governor. He is the leader of this town."

Carol starts to sit, surprised so much she pushes against every muscle that screams at her that she just doesn't have enough energy in her system to do what she wants to do.

"Town?"

"Forgive me for being so rude," he says, stepping forward into her space again and the slick, oiliness of his manner oozes over her, settling across her skin, in her belly until she tips over into something dirty, something wild and she feels queasy. "You're in Woodbury."

"And people call you the Governor?" She arches a brow, slightly bemused that he can't see how his arrogance is a turn off.

"They do," he admits, that charming, little boy smile attempting to whittle its way under her skin, but she's far from fooled.

"And you're all right with that?" There's an implicit suggestion of disdain in her voice, and only after she's said the words does she wish she could suck them back inside, suddenly fearful that showing this man any sense of distrust would never work in her favour, that there might be repurcussions that could get them hurt.

He simply shrugged, choosing to ignore the challenge. "It makes things simpler."

"I can see how it would," Carol agrees, if only to him, because if there is one thing she does get its that this man is anything but simple. Anything but straight-forward.

Merle has taken them from the frying pan and dumped them straight into the fire, she feels the truth of it as it squirms around in her gut, icy fingers pinching her insides viciously. Why has he done that to them? To her?

The Governor nods his acknowledgement and dismissal and Carol knows enough, even though her strength is lagging, to not push it further. To not challenge this man, especially while she is so weak. She may have taken down two violent men intent on doing her friends harm, but she's sure with this man she will need every bit of her wits about her.

"Anyway, you gave your friends quite a scare," he informs her, almost chastising her like she's been sick and dying on purpose just to make her friends feel guilty.

"Wasn't my intention," she concedes around another fit of chest-aching coughs, but now she's tired and her brain hurts from trying to stay ahead of this meeting, and her fingers are numb from Michonne's violent grasp. It's so cold and she shivers involuntarily.

"I'll leave you to get some rest. When you're feeling better we can talk about getting you up and about." He shoots that insincere smile her way and turns to take his leave but before he reaches the door, Michonne has stomped forward, her face screwed up with anger.

"We want our weapons."

Oh no. She hadn't realised they'd had their weapons removed, and Carol feels naked and vulnerable in a heartbeat. She understands the fierce expression on Michonne's face, can't understand why Andrea is standing off to the side being diplomatic and friendly, placating Michonne and gently laughing with the Governor that everything is fine. Carol's stomach roils, her skin sweats, and she remembers those men and how much they'd planned to hurt them.

And can't quite banish the image in her head that this man, a man who hides behind a title and doesn't share his real name, is planning to do them the same.


	12. Chapter 12

AN: My apologies that this update has taken so long. I got slightly side-tracked on my new Caryl fic—it's almost done, though, so I should be able to get back to this. Also, a little bit of a mental block with this one. Would really appreciate any feedback on it to make sure I'm still on track. Please review!

Also: I DO NOT OWN THE WALKING DEAD. I mostly forget to say that, but it doesn't mean I think I do own it, just that I'm very forgetful. Please don't sue me!

Part Eleven

He wants to go to her so bad it makes his feet itch. Through his socks. Through his damn boots. He can't explain why. It's not even that she is his closest link to Daryl, not that he doesn't plan to press her for stories of his brother when she's in a state fit enough to do so. He's waited so long to hear about Daryl—spent most of his days willing a God that's disappeared from the world to keep the boy safe until he can find him. Now he has his chance and it's not even the first thing on his mind.

Several times through the day he catches himself walking to the building they use as a hospital, and several times he's forced himself to retreat. He doesn't know what the fuck he's doing, why he wants to see her so bad, but he thinks the tingling of his fingers where she'd grasped his hand, and the burned imprint of her lips where she'd kissed his knuckles might have something to do with it. He can't understand how a woman like her can treat a man like him as she has been, but he's not complaining. Not today, anyways.

Phil intercepts him late that first morning and asks him to meet him at Milton's lab. That shitty little nerd is the last person he wants to see. His science experiments that litter the entire space makes Merle nervous in that way that all things he doesn't understand does. Blackie's pet biters are chained up against a pole and Merle stops to visit with them, ignoring Milton as he gets his kicks poking his finger into their jawless mouths, feeling mildly disgusted at the spongy tissue that's left caressing his fingers.

With trepidation, he watches as Phil enters and he gradually stands to attention. He's in no rush to start this little chat, in no rush to show obedience to the sorry prick that has railroaded his life. He knows what this is about, knew an explanation would be expected sooner or later. Looks like the time has arrived and Merle knows a moment of self-doubt about making his bullshit believable, but he has to try—for those women he's brought into this place. The Gov's suspicious already, he can tell, for the glint of evil that he usually is able to mask from the general observer is shining there for anyone who cares to take a look. It's just typical Merle is the only one standing in front of him. Milton is too far away to see, and Merle thinks he'd talk up some excuse for what he observed anyway. That boy isn't too smart when it comes to what is obvious.

"So, Merle. I'm having a bit of trouble explaining to Jody's mother why he didn't return from your hunt." There's a challenge in his voice, a hint of humour and Merle is so consumed with disgust that his teeth ache. Disgust in himself that he was so callous about that kid's death and disgust in Phil for finding any kind of sick leverage from it.

"Kid couldn't even defend himself. The hell was I supposed to do against a herd?"

"You were supposed to bring him back alive," Phil says and the coldness that settles in his gaze is designed to make Merle chill with fear. What it does is piss him off, but he tamps down his initial impulse and tries to look contrite.

"I ain't in the business of performin' miracles. Someone shoulda taught that boy how to attack walkers before sendin' him out there." He wants to say more, say 'fuck you' to their evil leader that cherishes no life other than his own, but Merle clamps his lips tight and wonders when he should start the countdown for when he explodes and challenges this man to the point where he gets his ass killed.

"And so you, what? Lose Jody to walkers then pick yourself up three strays?"

That grates on his nerves something fierce and so he shoves his good hand in his pants pocket so Phil can't see the fist he's formed and is just itching to smash into the cockhead's face.

"Yeah, they know how to handle 'emselves," he can't help but say spitefully. "Kept 'emselves alive out there on their own all winter. Pity Jody got bitten. Coupla women coulda taught him a thing or two."

The Governor's eyes harden and narrow to slits and Merle sees the good sense to shut his mouth. A frisson of fear squeezes his chest and a film of sweat breaks out on his flesh. The fucker must notice because all at once he's grinning, his calculating gaze turning instead to the chained pets.

"Those women certainly bring a new sense of excitement to things around here," he says, taking a step nearer and getting up real close and personal with both Merle and the pets, his finger almost jabbing through shattered jaw and tickling the back of the thing's throat. "You know them?"

Merle holds his ground but even he can feel the nervous twitch in the muscle beside his eye. "Two of 'em. Andrea and Carol."

"They were with the Atlanta group? They know your brother?" The sudden concern was laid on so thick Merle worries he'll never scrape it off. He knows Phil doesn't give two shits about Merle's brother, about Merle ever being reunited with him. He just wants to know that that group is far from here, not a threat and that Merle is as under his brutal thumb as he has been since they rescued him and gave him his life back.

"They did," Merle admits carefully. Last thing he wants is to plant some seed in Phil's head and cause these women undeserved hurt. "Ain't seen my brother for almost a year. Got separated when a herd attacked where they were stayin'. Don't even know if Daryl or anyone else made it out."

He believes Daryl made it, refuses to contemplate otherwise. Hell, if those women could escape a herd of walkers then his own fool brother would have. Daryl is a survivor more than anyone else Merle knows, probably himself included. Took a damn saint to stay with their daddy well into adulthood.

"So you don't have a place to start a search." It's no question and Merle recognises it as the threat it is. Sure there's a place to start a search—he could go back to the farm, take one of the women with him and try and see which way they fled, but before he even has the chance to suggest it, he's shot down. "It's a shame."

Yeah, it's a fucking shame. He wants out of this place, wants away from this psychopath. Merle has rubbed shoulders with some real scary sonsabitches in his time, hell he rode with a whole pack of scary sonsabitches, but Phil has an edge of insanity that even the meanest asshole lacked and this is what makes Merle equally desperate to get away from him and hesitant to take that step. He knows he's not getting out alive. No one ever leaves Woodbury. Those that try are hunted down and killed before they can spread news of the town to outsiders. Phil keeps a tight lid on things as long as strangers don't come seeking what they have, and this is why Merle is in the shit for bringing the women in. If they'd have been men, they'd not have made it through the gate, but women are added pussy, and Phil likes to preen to a captive and gullible audience. Those women aren't going anywhere and Merle feels sick that he's brought them here. He didn't have a choice. Carol was going to die out there if he hadn't brought her to the doc, and the thought of that woman dying after all she's been through just doesn't sit right with him.

When he gets out of there, his feet take him straight to her. He's lost patience with himself, and decides that if he wants to see her, then he ain't a fucking pussy, so he'll goddam see her. He's got shit all else to do, other than go back to his place and kick the shit out of everything in sight because he's been forbidden like a child to go find his own fucking brother. He's steaming mad by the time he makes it to her bedside, and even though the dark girl is still sitting there, chatting quietly between them, the rage falls back to a simmer. It has no place in her presence and he curses himself in his own head for giving a shit.

"Good to see you're awake at last," he says and feels like kicking his own ass. His tone is harsher than he means it to be and Carol frowns at him in surprise. The other one, Michonne, isn't going to leave them alone if he comes across all threatening and for a second he wonders why the hell he wants to be alone with her when he's actively tried to not be alone with any woman in this place.

"Good to see you weren't a figment of my imagination." She beams at him and he stumbles to a halt, wondering if anyone has ever smiled with such happiness to see him in his long life.

"If you thought that, darlin', then you ain't real creative." He's pleased to see he's still got some brains because what he's finding he's struggling with is his breath. It's coming to him patchy, disappearing completely when his eyes are caught in hers, when he registers the exact shade of blue as being somewhat close to the ocean he hasn't seen since he flew over it to serve overseas. That's been a long ass time and yet he still remembers never seeing anything as blue as that expanse of water, the depth of its tones as his body passes over it with a hundred other men about to be deployed. Not until now. Now he sees that depth again, sees the gentle, undulating waves and smells the salt in the air. Shit, he's turning into a pussy right in front of her, and yet he kind of likes the steady throb of blood rushing through his veins, the pounding of his heart beneath his ribcage. With one glance, one smile she's reminded him he's alive and being so in this world isn't always a bad thing. Hell, she's got him thinking he's _glad_ to be alive, just so he could have seen her.

Something passes between her and Michonne and Merle is left standing there like a goddam fool. Blackie eyes him warily and he glares back. His knife is bigger than hers right now so he ain't about to feel threatened by a damn look; he full well knows her sword is locked away at Phil's place and he feels sad for a moment that she's probably never going to get it back, and if she does she won't be alive long enough to enjoy it. Just as he's about to reattach his balls, she stands and even he can appreciate the lithe grace she exudes. If he was any other man he'd be all over it, but he's changed this past year. Living all fucked up and out of control isn't him anymore, isn't how he can deal with all the shit that goes down around this place, and maybe this explains why he's still standing in this room, why his knuckles still throb from the imprint of Carol's lips.

"I'll go and find Andrea so we can discuss how long we are staying."

Carol nods the same minute Merle's eyes nearly bug out of his head. Wait, they're leaving? They don't know they can't leave, that Phil would rather kill them first than let them get out of there and tell others about this secret town.

Michonne tips her head at him in acknowledgement as she walks past, her warrior strength and grace still there even though she doesn't have that fancy sword swinging across her back. She stops right in front of him, stares at him like the message she's trying to convey is the most important one he will ever get in his life, and then she walks away. She's warning him. Fuck, he should be warning _them._

"You need time to get better," he splutters the second the door shuts and like a moth to a flame he's at her side, ignoring the chair Michonne had been occupying to sit his ass right down on the bed. He notices straight away that Carol doesn't seem to mind, that the smile that lights up her face appears slowly, almost shy.

"And I have that chance, thanks to you. I don't have the first clue how to repay what you've done by bringin' me here," she says and he almost swallows his own tongue. He hates her gratitude, feels sick about how she'll turn against him as soon as she knows she's stuck here. It only takes him a minute to wonder why they are so hellbent on leaving. On the surface this place seems like a refuge in the middle of a hurricane. It's solace where out in the woods, on the run, there isn't any. He's completely shocked they haven't been seduced by the Governor's irrefutable charms, and he's more than a little bit impressed, too.

"I ain't expectin' anything from ya'll," he tells her, the huskiness in his own voice giving him cause for concern. "You're plannin' on leavin'? Why?"

He sees the storm that drifts across the ocean in that minute and he knows she's been as quick to suss Phil out as he had been, but she has others to support her and build up her confidence that getting out will work for them. Even half delirious from blood loss he'd known his ass was fucked but good once he'd been brought inside these walls. He's never worked out why Phil chose to save him rather than wasting one of those precious bullets by putting it through his brain, thinks it's a mystery that he's never going to know the answer to, as much as that pisses him off.

She looks down and he sees her hands are twisting together; she's a ball of nervous energy and slowly it's passing along to him.

"Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful to you. Bringin' me here saved my life—the girls know that. But…there's somethin' not right here, Merle. There's somethin' not right with that man. The Governor."

He catches himself before he nods, he knows damn well there's lots of fucking wrong with the Governor, but he can't tell her that. Can't tell her anything that will get her and her friends killed.

"You'd really go back out there just because you _think _there's somethin' wrong with him? You're safer here an' you know it." He can feel that earlier anger rise up inside him again, choking down his finer feelings. He doesn't want her back out there, trying to dodge biters and keep clear of men even more dangerous than Phil can be. He knows it's out there, death is out there for everyone, but this isn't what he wants for _her _and he can't even explain to himself why he cares.

She ignores his bluster and even though she's still sick, still weak, she launches herself forward and seizes his hand and drags it into her lap, smothering it between the two of hers. He wants to rip it out of her grip, wants to leap off the bed and ask her what the hell she's thinking getting so familiar with him, but the memory of those lips of hers grazing his knuckles makes his knees go weak.

"Come with us."

It's barely a whisper yet he hears it like a scream, the words slamming into his head getting louder and louder. Go with them. Fuck, he _can't. _He knows, he _knows _what's gonna happen the second they walk out those gates, and the only way he can protect them is if he's on the team that is ordered to take them down. He has to get away from her, has to stop this insane shit now before Phil works out that Merle might be a little sweet on her, that his tastes delve more to this down-to-earth woman than they do toward Eva, and even he can't explain why that is.

"That ain't gonna happen, sweet cheeks."

He _forces _himself off her bed, shudders as his palm gets the full treatment of ten sweet digits sweeping against his flesh when he pulls away, and his gut tightens at the changed expression on her face. She looks shocked, she looks fucking _wounded, _like his refusal to even consider leaving this shitty town is a rejection of her, and as he thinks this, he wonders what it would be like to do the opposite. What it would be like to take her up on the offer, leave this place with her, keep letting her hold his hand and maybe letting it go further—how far would she take it? Suddenly he's dying to know, desperate to know, and is infuriated with himself for being such a pussy. What the fuck is wrong with him, going weak at the knees over a woman? This woman. Jesus fucking Christ, this town has truly screwed with his head and he has no idea if he's ever coming back.

"Merle, wait." She's flinging the covers back and trying to get out of bed and he can see she's not up to it yet, her legs wobbly as she tries to stand, tries to drag him back from the door that he's about to open.

"Fuck's sake, woman. Get your ass back in that bed before you fall on it."

She doesn't listen, of _course _she doesn't listen. Damn bitch lets herself be a punching bag for who knows how many years and as soon as she's out in the world alone with a coupla women, she suddenly finds her backbone.

"Come back here." Her tone is pure steel and his spine stiffens. Before he even knows he's moved his hand is gripped around her elbow and he's yanked her against him, her body trembling against his chest and her eyes wide, watching him carefully.

"I ain't no dog you can order around, Princess. You wanna leave, then leave, but don't go draggin' me into your stupid, crazy ass plans. I gotta home here. I ain't givin' that up for no piece of ass." Then he shoves her back in the bed, lifts up the blankets and tucks her in so tight he hopes she can't fucking _move. _

He hates that he's leaving her with a flash of hurt shooting at him from those eyes that are like the sea, but as he flings open the door and sees Phil standing not too far from it, he's suddenly glad he was rough, that he said what he did. He'll have far more chance to save her life if Phil thinks she's nothing to him.

"Everything fine, Merle?" Phil says, that knowing glint shadowing his words, just daring Merle to deviate from his plan, to show disloyalty that would give him no choice but to put him down.

"Everythin's just dandy."

Even if inside he feels like everything is breaking apart.


End file.
